Too Much Perfection Is A Failure

Fragments, Reflections And Notes From The New Performance Turku Festival

The audience ambassador is a border-crosser – a person who moves across the thresholds between institutions and communities. They are an interpreter, someone who tries to put into words what often lingers between experience and language. But the task of an audience ambassador is not only to convey events to the audience; it is also to return what has been experienced back into a shared conversation. The ambassador makes visible what happens between the performance and the viewer – that fleeting, often wordless connection that cannot be fully explained but can certainly be felt. Acting as a bridge between communities, artists, and institutions, the ambassador also seeks to awaken participation and agency. They bring the language of expertise closer to the community, aware that understanding does not emerge from control, but from dialogue.

This role is deeply performative. Performance art is not a closed work but a situation that arises from shared time, bodies, and breath. The audience ambassador continues this breath: they are part of the echo of the performance, its communal resonance. In performance art, communication is never one-directional. It takes place in-between – at that very threshold where words end and gestures begin. In this in-between space, the essential role of the audience ambassador becomes clear: they do not offer ready-made answers but create a space where different experiences and perspectives can meet and be heard.

1. The Training

I had no prior experience in leading workshops or in the somewhat difficult-to-define role of an audience ambassador. Becoming an ambassador for the festival required participating in a training program that took place over several weekends. The training began in late spring at the Turku Art House and consisted primarily of informative, art-historical lectures. These covered the history of performance art, key artists, and various styles, approaches, and movements. At the same time, we familiarized ourselves with the festival program, the organizers, and the other audience ambassadors. Alongside the lectures, we also carried out score-based exercises inspired by the themes of each session.

The training was further enriched through weekly visits to local theatres, dance studios, and art exhibitions, ensuring that the learning experience was as diverse and comprehensive as possible. At the end of the training period, we developed a plan outlining what each of us would implement during the festival.

2. The Workshops

While planning the festival program, I realized how fruitful it can be to organize workshops within the context of performance art. Can art and science be seen as complementary means of producing knowledge and understanding the world in a way that is both experiential and critical? Inspired by this idea, I began designing workshops where students of biology, environmental sciences, and performance art could meet. My goal was to create a communal space where different ways of knowing – scientific, artistic, and embodied – could interact. I wanted to explore how thinking and sensing could coexist and support each other.

We met with the workshop participants in Manilla, a former rope factory that has since been converted into a cultural space. I had prepared a loose program framework in advance to support the workshop, but to my relief, I soon realized that it was hardly needed. Since the workshop functioned as a playful invitation to interdisciplinary exploration, a shared thread of discussion quickly emerged among the participants. After a brief introduction and initial discussion, we began by listening to Christine Ödlund’s sound work Stress Call of the Stinging Nettle, which is based on the chemical signaling processes of nettles. The piece was intended to establish a speculative and sensory framework for the workshop. At the same time, those interested started preparing pancake batter using dried nettles and a ready-made flour mix.

The atmosphere was, in its own way, effortless. Between cooking, listening to the sound piece, and my brief presentation, a lively and self-directed discussion emerged among the participants. In addition to topics related to food and art, we reflected on the ethical dimensions of dammar resin production, the ecological state of the Baltic Sea, and how seriously John Lilly ultimately took his attempts to communicate with dolphins.

LAPSUS WORKSHOP: In another workshop, I worked with art students, exploring error and imbalance as creative forces. I took the group to see a serene, aesthetically beautiful yet unexpectedly sensual and intimate performance by Gaëtan Rusquet. The piece evoked mixed feelings and led several participants to withdraw from the bodily workshop planned for the following day. In the end, due to illness and other unforeseen reasons, no one was able to attend, and I found myself alone in an empty dance studio at Manilla.

I put on a playlist of Death Grips, Inuit throat singing and polyphonic Baka songs – a mix of cacophonic, polyrhythmic, and experimental sounds I had prepared to support the workshop’s movement exercises. The content had been inspired by the movement practices of Trisha Brown and Tatsumi Hijikata. Although the workshop did not unfold as planned, it led to an important insight: mistakes and disruptions can be the beginning of something new. Moving intuitively in the empty studio, I began to develop a sequence of movements—a kind of choreographic exercise—that I had not planned in advance. “Too much perfection is a failure,” as stated in Alejandro Jodorowsky’s acid western film El Topo.

The goal of the workshops was not to teach in a traditional sense, but to explore together. I asked: what happens when thought, movement, and matter begin to interact? In the NOKKOSET workshop, we also reflected on what objects might teach us and how we can recognize the complexity and agency of the material world.

3. The Challenges

I was surprised by how difficult it was to reach students and get them to commit to a workshop spanning multiple sessions. I had planned the NOKKOSET workshop for marine biology and environmental science students at the University of Turku and Åbo Akademi. I tried to promote the workshop and reach students through the university staff, the student associations for biology and geography, and individual contacts, but without success. In addition, I noticed that many of those who had registered were unable to commit to two separate meetings, as each workshop also included a performance visit on a different day.

Cancellations were likely influenced by the fact that the workshops were free of charge—it is easier to withdraw from an event that does not require financial commitment. Some absences were also due to the flu season. In the case of the movement-focused group, withdrawal was partly a reaction to a performance whose nudity and intimacy had unsettled participants, which I later confirmed. Other challenges were more practical, involving small but significant details such as dietary restrictions and allergies that arose during the nettle pancake workshop.

In the end, all participants who attended the workshops were students of animation, photography, and fine arts from the Turku Arts Academy. I reached most of them by presenting the workshops during a shared introductory session at the school, and additionally, an invitation was sent via the institution’s administrative email to all students. I also created posters for the workshops, which I distributed around central Turku. Both the posters and the emails included a Google Forms registration link as well as an email address for inquiries. However, the majority of registrations were made informally in person while I was at the school.

4. Festival Experience

A: Hii (13:03)
How did the workshops go? 😀

I: good! (13:03)

Lapsus workshop had some cancellations, but I ended up creating choreography in the studio myself 🙂 The workshop was meant to explore error and accident as creative possibilities, so when everyone cancelled it first felt like failure, but then I realized it was exactly what the concept was about. (13:04)

In the nettle pancake workshop we listened to Christine Ödlund’s sound works, and I presented research-based performances by Kira O’Reilly and Essi Kausalainen (13:05)

So yeah, cool stuff! (13:05)

A: Oh, so it kind of flopped? The nettle pancakes sound amazing though :0 (13:05)

I: Not really.. it was actually kind of perfect (13:06)

The whole thing was about failure and error, so the way it turned out felt just right (13:06)

A: haha, pretty fitting (13:06)

You became part of the failure yourself (13:07)

I: yep! Like those scores, where the instruction is more of an invitation than a command (13:07)

A: “Too much perfection is a mistake” 😀 (13:07)

Did people respond to that idea in the nettle part too? (13:08)

I: Kinda! That workshop turned into this big sensory conversation through sound, taste, and presence (13:08)

A: Uu poetic! (13:08)

I: 🙂 (13:09)

A: By the way! (13:09)

What time are we meeting at Manilla? (13:09)

I: 6 p.m., we’ll go see performances by Marita Bullmann and Sarah Cowdell, and later pizza and techno! (13:09)

A: Yii! Pizza! Cu soon!(13:09)

Ionas Laine

Ionas Laine

Ionas Laine on kuvataiteilija, joka työskentelee Helsingin ja Turun välillä. Hänen praktiikkansa avautuu läsnäolon ja poissaolon välisessä tilassa, jäljittäen menneisyyden viipyviä kerrostumia nykyhetkessä. Tällä hetkellä hän on kiinnostunut performanssista keinona tutkia ihmisen ja ei-inhimillisen toimijoiden välisiä vuorovaikutuksia.