helka-maria.kinnunen

Helka-Maria Kinnunen, actror, DA (Doctor of Theatre and Drama) has worked as actor in several Finnish theatres and for The Finnish Broadcasting Company as well. She is also interested in making manuscripts and directing, and she wants to do artistic work in different environments. She works as teacher at Theatre Academy, too, where her doctoral thesis, `Stories in the artistic process of theatre´, was completed and approved in May 2008.

Helka-Maria Kinnunen
+358 44 5954495.
Ilmattarentie 27 B
00610 Helsinki
Finland


Curriculum Vitae (selected)

I have recently started a new job as a Principal Lecturer in the Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, Helsinki, in the Department of the Performing Arts. For more information see

Read my essay Minding the Gap (pp. 82-99) in an open access-publication Näyttämöltä tutkimukseksi (2012) by the Theatre Research Society

Minding the Gap/ Abstract:
In this article I ask how the academic art context in the performing
arts is formed and what kind of support it offers for the exploration of
issues about artistic research. I discuss my working environment as an
artistic researcher in theatre and drama. I am writing about invisible
and changing, personally experienced practices and their socially shared
dimensions. I refer to my ongoing experience of working at the Theatre
Academy in Helsinki as a tutor of doctoral actor students and as a post-
doctoral artistic researcher with an actor’s background.1 Very similar
experiences to mine have been articulated by various contemporary
artist-researchers in their doctoral dissertations from art universities in
Finland.2 I engage in a dialogue with a few recently published articles
and anthologies on artistic research within the field of performing
arts, presenting widely discussed views on artistic research. My text
is a contribution to a multilayered discussion in artistic, practice-based
research.


The NSU Winter Seminar for Artistic Research is in the Theatre Academy, Helsinki, from the 20 to 22 February. A lecture-demonstration by me and Academy Research Fellow, Dr. Leena Rouhaiainen will be on Wednesday the 22: Explorations in Mindful Interaction: Features of Embodied Respons(e)ability in Performance.
Schedule

Brahenpuiston Myrsky (Storm), osa II, Art Project for Young People, part II is having its second year. We are altogether nine artists from various backgrounds working artistically in three special secondary schools for youngsters, who have learning problems.

My contribution, Towards collaborativity is published in
Blood, Sweat & Theory by John Freeman. Towards collaborativity presents a case study of my doctoral dissertation. In the light of the experiment, Rainstories, I reflect on the possibilities and problems of theatre-making as a collaborative process.
Read the abstract here.

On a searcher´s path
STORIES IN THE
ARTISTIC PROCESS OF THEATRE-MAKING, ABSTRACT

My dissertation concentrates on the artistic process of theatre-making and asks how stories and narrativity mould this process. I am interested in the collaborative nature of the theatre, and focus on how a production is made through collective activity. The challenges of combining thinking, knowing and artistry both in artistic work and in the researching of art are discussed. I delve into my research cases from a participating position: I am involved in the phenomenon that is researched, applying methods of autoethnography to the research process.

The dissertation consists of three parts. In the first, How to illuminate the path, I describe how I became interested in studying theatre processes, and present the research cases and the methodological commitments. I retrieve activities in artistic work in the light of Hannah Arendt´s philosophy. My narrative analysis is based on Hans-Georg Gadamers theory of hermeneutic interpretation and on the Aristotelian dramatic model. The aim of encountering the phenomenon that I delve into – the artistic process as a collective activity – is guided by Martin Buber´s dialogical philosophy.

The second part, How to guard the flame, is a research journey through the research cases. The first example, Sadetarinoita (Rainstories), was created in a devising process and was performed at KokoTeatteri, Helsinki.

The second process, based on Jukka Parkkinen´s trilogy, Suvi Kinos ja seitsemän enoa (Suvi Kinos and her seven uncles), took place at Lahti City Theatre. It was the only example that I was not involved in. The third case, Koti (Home), was a madeto- order production by a dancer, a musician and an actor, for Diakonissalaitos, Helsinki.

The cases witness various dimensions that narrativity can acquire in theatre work. Emerging discoveries create discussion between the cases, too. Possibilities and obstacles in the artistic work of theatre-making as well as the unpredictable character of action itself become central subjects of the analysis. Narrativity emerges as polyphonic (Bahtin), transformative (Aristotle) and lived landscape. From the researcher-artist’s angle the question of poetry in action becomes the ever-recurring ground of theatre art.

In the third part, On the borders of theatre and narratives, I analyse the plot of my dissertation process by presenting the fourth case, Dreaming in a hammock – overwhelming motion in the mind. It started in the research process and brought into it a dimension of artistic research. I also discuss my transforming theatre-maker identity and the changed understanding that the reflection process has brought to me.

Narratives emerge as multiple means in artistic processes. They nourish and guide the collaboration of the working groups and act as a means to develop the artist’s self-reflection. Narrativity can thus become a multidimensional socio-cultural mediator in the communication of theatre processes and dramatic art. When recognized, it may follow the artist as a lifelong companion in the building process of her or his inner narrative. Narrativity can discover the network of relations and commitments where the artistic activities take place and can create unimagined possibilities for these activities. Narrative analyses show that the artistic processes of theatre-making are profoundly and significantly intertwined with their environments. It is obvious that these relations remain mostly unknown in practical work.

When peering at the landscape that the research process has created and opened up, I suggest finally that a narrative perspective on reality should be considered as the ground and place for encountering collective theatre work and artistry, as well as the ground of theatre life itself – of thinking, reflecting on, and discussing theatre.
***

My contribution, Towards collaborativity is published in Blood, Sweat & Theory by John Freeman. Towards collaborativity presents a case study of my doctoral dissertation. In the light of the experiment, Rainstories, I reflect on the possibilities and problems of theatre-making as a collaborative process.Read the abstract here.