Tiia Kasurinen: Songbird

Tiia Kasurinen will perform Songbird at Dance Base Yokohama on September 6^th 2025 (Sat.), at 4PM. The performance will be followed by an artist talk. In Yokohama, Tiia Kasurinen is accompanied by Keliel.

“It is in large part according to the sounds people make that we judge them sane or insane, male or female, good, evil, trustworthy, depressive, marriageable, moribund, likely or unlikely to make war on us, little better than animals, inspired by God.” – Anne Carson, The Gender of Sound (1992)

Songbird is a performance combining contemporary choreography, practices of performing music and the tools of camp-aesthetics and drag. Inspired by the philosopher and poet Anne Carson’s essay ‘The Gender of Sound‘, the performance reflects on the identity of voice, choreographies of the vocal cords, femininity and vulnerability.

In the performance, ‘Songbird’ meets her audience through sounds, songs, vocal cords, lyrics, costumes and dance. How do choreographies of vocal cords spread through space? What do pitches, frequencies and modes of expression cause in the spectator? How do the use of voice and embodiment intersect? Music of the performance is by Keliel.

Tiia Kasurinen is an artist, dancer and choreographer working both internationally and in Finland, and graduated from the Stockholm University of the Arts. She is interested in themes such as identity, femininity, gaze, power, camp and pop culture. Kasurinen’s choreographic works have been presented at venues and festivals such as Dansé Elargie in France, One Dance -festival in Bulgaria, Inkonst in Sweden, Dance Base Yokohama in Japan, Helsinki Festival, and at Zodiak – Centre for New Dance.

The performance is organized by Dance Base Yokohama in collaboration with the Finnish Institute in Japan as part of the pARTir initiative funded by the European Union, NextGeneration EU.