Anna Torkkel has been to Rome several times, but each return has had a different tone to it. The first visit had the intensity of uncertainty, getting to know the city and gaining some sort of architectural overview of its landscape and traces. This time around revolves less around the pressure of having to see specific artefacts. It's more about letting the city absorb you instead of the other way around.
The presence of history calms one down, it adds a soothing quality to Rome. When things are over 2000 years old, and manmade, the perspectives are drastically changing. The viewpoint of oneself in a place of that kind, adds some distance from the circles back home. Being in the world in general gives one a feeling of awe when a lot of things have existed parallel to one another, looping eternally.
”The globe is old,” Anna exclaims happily and laughs. She has previously done a residency with us back in 2023. This time in 2026, her stay lasted for about 2 and a half months, from mid-February until the end of April.
Anna is currently based in Turku, where she was born. She is a choreographer, dancer, artistic director of a production company and a mother. During her life and career, she has lived in Stockholm, Helsinki, Tilburg and Amsterdam. Life events led her back to Turku, where she runs a venue for contemporary dance and performance. The venue is named Contemporary Art Space Kutomo, run by her association Ehkä-productions. Ehkä means maybe in Finnish, as an expression of openness to multiple possibilities. Ehkä was established in 2004, alongside Tashi Iwaoka, when Anna was still living in Amsterdam. A few years later, in 2009, Contemporary Art Space Kutomo was established in Turku. So that means a lot of, as Anna puts it, side-hustles. ”So you have to be somehow built a bit strangely in order to tolerate it.” She says.
In her own artistic practice, Anna has been working extensively on the research of presence and dancing to music. In her approach, the dance is evolving from the dance itself, allowing the endlessly inspiring landscape of movement to appear. In her choreographic pieces, she has created a collective space where dancing and expression take form.
We ask Anna if she has found the possibility of focusing on one project intensively while visiting Circolo Scandinavo. She describes how it never really was her agenda, since she now has the habit of working on several things at once, meaning that focusing on one thing for three months would not really be possible in her case. The facilities at Circolo do not allow a full studio, where it is possible to invite other performers to rehearse a piece, leading the artist to work with other mediums and aspects of their practices. Walking and thinking are not to be taken for granted. An idea can hit you when you least expect it, and Rome is somehow tailored for just that.
Anna's work, Bliss, which premiered last Autumn in Helsinki, was largely influenced by Rome. Perhaps more of the sublime feeling of walking into a baroque church, where everything is made to surprise and impress you. Leaving one's mouth widened in a constant ”O.” There is an underlying mystery of wonder: What does this church want to tell me? A church is a stage for performances; it has always been a venue where music has been played. Yet, the church can simultaneously be a contradictory place in terms of cultural expression. Leading to questions like: Where does dancing start? And where does dancing end? Does dancing require music?
Is it possible to abandon the music altogether, and still keep the rhythm afloat? Anna seems to think about these questions a lot, and managed to summarize it like this:
”Dancing is a way of imagining things; it is quite a mystical process, how we just haul into it. And we have done so since our mere existence. There is a sense of freedom, in the movement of one's body being directed by a force from somewhere up above oneself.”
We thank Anna for her inspiring months with us.
Text: Ebba Olsson
Photo: Sara Rynefors