inklingroom 18.05.2022

inklingroom is a London based multi-disciplinary art platform, record label and event series, founded by Estonian choreographer Keity Pook and Polish event promoter, and DJ Michal Sobkiewicz. The platform focuses on making immersive experience live events that combine experimental and club music with contemporary dance creating innovative performances. inklingroom is to build a bridge between artists and new contemporary club music genres leads to a completely new format where all performances can coexist and inspire each other as well as its audience.

On May 18th 2022, inklingroom’s first international showcase will take place in Tallinn at club HALL! The showcase takes place as a part of the Baltic Dance Platform 2022 host program by Sõltumatu Tantsu Lava. This special pre-opening night will present the works of ten Estonian based dance artists and DJs/musicians selected via an open call launched earlier this year.

The program features Estonia’s established dance artists such as Sigrid Savi, Pääsu-Liis Kens and Indrek Kornel, among fearless, emerging Elle Viies and duo Anumai Raska & Germo Toonikus, all to present thrilling innovative dance performances in the unique settings of Tallinn’s greatest techno super club.

On the music side we are thrilled to present Tallinn’s avant-garde icons such as DJ Court Rat with a rare DJ set appearance, as well as Sander Saarmets – an act that requires little introduction to regulars of the Estonian scene, but this time he will be presenting a special live performance. All is followed up by DJ sets by fast and furious contemporary club scene newcomers: boundary-pushing Elysian Tunes, performance artist and DJ, Jette Loona Hermanis.

The atmosphere and HALL’s visual identity will be provided by Estonian art KREAT MINDS collective who will curate and special one-off space design, exclusively for this event. KREAT MINDS team members are Jaagup Susi, Tristan Rebane, Joosep Elias Tani, Grete Vaalma, Kerttu Koemets, Ursula Ainso and Johanna Liisa Eichenbaum.

“Embodiment is the cell’s awareness of themselves. You let go of your conscious mapping. It is a direct experience; there are no intermediary steps or translations. There is no guide, no witness (…). In this instance, the brain is the last to know”. Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen

Our Mission:
inklingroom champions new contemporary dance and music and supports artists in creating boundary-pushing, innovative work. Our events series, radio residencies, and record label aims to give the platform to underrepresented artists in the industry to create immersive and expansive experiences. Therefore would like to prioritise artists representing gender and sexual minorities, as well as those of low income.

May 18th full program (A-Z)

Choreography
Anumai Raska & Germo Toonikus
Elle Viies
Indrek Kornel
Pääsu-Liis Kens
Sigrid Savi

Music
DJ Court Rat
Elysian Tunes
Endamisi Salamisi
Jette Loona Hermanis
Sander Saarmets

Space design by KREAT MINDS
Jaagup Susi (team leader)
Tristan Rebane (technique)
Joosep Elias Tani (technique)
Grete Vaalma (light)
Kerttu Koemets (decorations)
Ursula Ainso (decorations)
Johanna Liisa Eichenbaum (decorations)

Sigrid Savi

Sigrid Savi graduated in choreography and dance teaching at the University of Tartu Viljandi Culture Academy in 2015. Since then she lives in Berlin. Her work has been characterised by a brutally naive and satirical style. She uses poetical and descriptive texts, shapes melancholic landscapes and uses entertainment as a way to communicate and connect while fondling with social absurdities by overexposure.

“buy me a river”
“buy me a river” focuses on unrealistic expectations in a capitalist experiential space. An aspect of the potential for fulfilment is engaged. The virtues of displacements remind us instinctively of something from the past as well from the future. Escorted by materiality it lets itself drift away into fantasy. It is dreamy, it is punk. It is fluid and cryptic.

https://www.instagram.com/savigram_2.0/
https://sigridsavi.wixsite.com/savi

Pääsu-Liis Kens

In 2019, Pääsu-Liis Kens graduated from London Contemporary Dance School and a year after moved back home to Tallinn. Since then she has been looking deeper into her practice by being part of the year-long TantsuRUUM residency, also continuing creating and showing her work in Tallinn and taking part in many projects with other artists on and off the stage.

Pääsu-Liis Kens presents “Time Away”

a simple embodiment of the movement
a simple embodiment of the moment

hypersensitivity to my insides, to the space around me
repetition, repetition, repetition to feel fully
carving space, moving the air molecules around me, relocating the space itself

simply paying attention

embodiment as commitment
embodiment as presence
embodiment as paying attention

paying attention as listening
listening as care
care as peace

https://www.instagram.com/p.su_/

Elle Viies
Elle Viies is a third-year dance student at the University of Tartu Viljandi Culture Academy. She has previously studied contemporary dance at the dance school of the Estonian Dance Agency and participated as a dancer in various performances at Tallinn University, Viljandi Culture Academy, ETA Company. She is interested in uncanny ways of being and perceiving and bodies that are simultaneously functional and phenomenal.

“recollections of motion”
I want to embody myself as directly and honestly as possible (if even possible) and then try to take a step back and embody an out-of-body experience, riding the line between dissociating from the self and drowning in the self. “An out-of-body experience, which people find to be bizarre and anxiety provoking, represents a failure of the unity of self and body, a shift from a first- to a third-person perspective.” How can the self be the other at the same time, how can I hallucinate and be my own hallucination?

https://www.instagram.com/viieselle/

Anumai Raska & Germo Toonikus

Anumai Raska is a performance artist, and dancer currently studying acting at the University of Tartu Viljandi Culture Academy. Anumai works mainly through the technical body, of which physical experiences and personal memories are an integral part. She has been curating the dance and performance art event Battlejämm for 3 years and her latest production “raska/unt/unt/raska” was performed at Draama Festival 2020. As a performer, she has contributed to several works of both Estonian and international artists, such as “False Falling” by Keithy Kuuspu, “Performance STL-is” by Ruslan Stepanov and Artjom Astrov and “SHRINK 01995” by Lawrence Malstaf.

Germo Toonikus is currently studying acting at the University of Tartu Viljandi Culture Academy. However, he does not identify himself only as an actor. He is interested in the areas between theatre, dance, performance and fine arts. He himself follows the principles: “experiencing body” / “thinking body” / “linear composition” / “me as a quality”. Germo has always been interested in directing. But in recent years he has not found strong enough input for it. But he still feels the urge to do it. He doesn’t care about bullshit.

“therefore I embody”
I embody, therefore I am.
In addition to bodies, words are also embodied.
How the body obeys abstract commands?
Then what will our body or our mind embody?

https://www.facebook.com/germoo.toonikus
https://www.instagram.com/in_the_tonic/
https://www.facebook.com/anumai.raska
https://www.instagram.com/anumai.raska/

Indrek Kornel
Indrek Kornel is a choreographer/director/teacher, who first started dancing and moving when he was 18 years of age. Currently working locally in Estonia at Tallinn University as a guest lecturer in body conditioning and contemporary dance. Owner and creator of his own small dance/performance company Movement in Principles. Movement in Principles is a belief and personal experience that movement can heal, change and be the basis of being a better human being for oneself and for others.

“Solo 4”
Constant state of hyper-aware reflectivity with the space, the people, the taste, smell and texture of everything in relation to myself. How will the constant action of reflection change, transform and interact with my movement, my own body, my own state of being? I use what is there to go further and allow myself to experience the here and now. A journey between up and down left and right, heaven and hell.

https://www.instagram.com/indrekkor/
https://www.facebook.com/indrek.kornel/
https://kornel.ee/

Jette Loona Hermanis
Jette Loona Hermanis, pulsing Baltic blood, is a performance artist, choreographer, and performer, born 1997 in Tallinn, Estonia. After finishing her studies in SNDO Choreography, Amsterdam, she has since been based in Tallinn and Riga. Her Dj sets are predominately dark and fast-paced. While weaving aggressive beats with fragile melancholy, the emotional hardcore enables to exhaust the body in high energy dancing, thus releasing the inner world of feelings. Motion driven sets fusing deconstructed club, electronic avant-garde, dance hall, rap, trance, and hardstyle, will surely make the sweat drip.

https://www.instagram.com/hexarlequinette/?hl=en
https://soundcloud.com/jetteloona

Sander Saarmets
Sander Saarmets is an interdisciplinary composer, sound designer & electronic musician hailing from Estonia. Starting from the 2000’s electronic scene of Tallinn, Saarmets has been on a constant sonic expedition that has led him to places like Taiwan, Sweden, France & Germany. He has studied electronic music at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre and is a proud member of the CoPeCo alumni. During his journey, he has created solo and ensemble works, music and soundscapes for film (e.g. Everyday Mysticism & A Pile of Ghosts), contemporary dance (e.g. Ainukordus & Tuhande silmaga jumal), galleries (e.g. We Will Always Have Paris & Ghost Hits Wall) & runways (e.g. YUFASH SS20 at New York Fashion Week).

https://sandersaarmets.com
https://www.instagram.com/sander_saarmets/

Elysian Tunes
Arising from the depths of Moscow’s high-speed underground rave scene is one of the movement’s staples, Aubery ‘Astro’ Lis. Elysian Tunes, a project led by Aubery alone, features over 10 music projects, each with a unique style, from ambient and harsh noise, through chiptune and freestyle electro to absurdic YTP-influenced speedcore and breakcore. For the set you are to experience, she’s preparing a special dish: 45 minutes of high speed, high energy absurd high-brow gag, an insane bass drum and amen break overload!

https://soundcloud.com/astro_teh_focks
https://astrossoundhell.neocities.org/
https://elysiantunes.bandcamp.com/

DJ Court Rat
Mihkel Kleis (aka Ratkiller / DJ Court Rat) has been releasing music under numerous underground labels since late 90’s, witnessing and shaping the forming of Estonian experimental music scene, all of this while maintaining his distinctive and somewhat obviously unexpected approach.

Ratkiller’s music seems at once spontaneous and intricately plotted – it’s like a computer system that has started to improvise with its own programming. Because it feels good. Because it’s testing the very barriers of what it is capable of, and rather than disguising its limitations, using them as accompaniment. The sense of worn-out psychedelia in Ratkiller’s music as well as his obsessions with all kinds of obscurities might ring many bells in listener’s imagination, evoking the feeling of being smothered to death by a cartoon while dreaming of a fantasy junkyard, but it is foremost the playful dialogue between “zeitgeist” and “obsolete”, the constant shifting of forms and their meanings.

https://www.instagram.com/mihkelkleis/

Endamisi Salamisi

Musician/composer/DJ/radio host for over 10 years. His recent tracks were played by the like Jon Rust, Shanti Celeste, Tasker etc. His music was released on Emotsiya, Trash Can Dance, Diffuse Reality, Hidden Assets and Isaiah Tapes. Endamisi Salamisi music drifts and intertwines between harsh and percussion-heavy floor to floor music and more ethereal and ghostly ambient noise pieces.

https://soundcloud.com/endamisi-salamisi
https://endamisisalamisi.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/endamisi_salamisi/