Three Miracles and a Milestone Pop Miracle

As a divine intervention. We need to move out from any logical scheme – because there must be no possible way to explain the miracle in a natural fashion. The rational is out of the question: miracles either happen, or they don’t.

The project Three Miracles and a Milestone Pop will deal with miracle as a metaphor or better, as an ironic icon. As something that can "unfasten the spectator’s seatbelt” –quoting movie director Elia Suleiman (director of the movie Divine Intervention).

We can argue that a performance should trigger a special alchemy, to gain or possess a magic gift, as if something that belongs to a miracle must produce itself on stage. With this in mind, we will search for “events” that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to as a supernatural cause. Not necessarily considering it as a work of God, but just as an emotional wonder or marvel. We will search for these miracles in our society and in our everyday life.

We have all heard of people that waking up from a coma starts talking in a foreign language. The “foreign accent syndrome" labels this rare neurological dysfunction and has been detected in people affected by stroke or head trauma. From 1941 to 2010 only fifty cases were reviewed in scientific literature. But is there a rational explanation for how an uneducated person from Europe, who lived in the same village all his life, can wake up and start talking in an old language as Sanskrit?
Miracles can also be considered as secret wishes, as moments, epiphanies, disturbances and lowbrow comedy acts. As a poetical Haiku or a Zen koan.

As a starting point for the work we claim: We need miracles to heal the breakdown of communication that goes on in the world, but also for catching a flight when stuck in a sudden traffic jam. Miracles are constantly taking place around us to interfere with the ordinary processes of nature. Miracles are not impossible, nor are they incredible. And we can make them happen on stage anytime we want.

Milestones

A milestone is a significant event in our lives. Often a milestone marks the start of a new chapter, a new beginning. While literally referring to a roadside marker that defines the distance to a location, we also perceive it as a timeline marker in our lives. These days, the word is more often used figuratively to refer to significant events in life, like graduating from college or getting married. It acts like a sort of road sign: as a moment to reflect on where you stand in life. An event that may result in a big change and that you later can refer to as “before and after”.
Milestone Pop is the name of the band.

Three Miracles and a Milestone Pop is a duo that will bring forward the creative collaboration between the Finnish dancer and choreographer Sanna Myllylahti and Francesco Scavetta that started with the piece Sincerely yours, in 2008, and will draw upon the experiences they share, both as choreographers and performers. The work will approach a direct and unfiltered communication with the audience – searching for humoristic antagonists between what is intended and what is presented. ”I can see you… you can see me. We are on the same level… almost!”
We will deal with vision and illusion. A politic of the gaze, contra posed to the impression of the glance: a performativity that continuously poke our lazy eyes.
A re-creation in the brain of what we have seen. A re-creation in the vision of what we have heard. A constant negotiation between what we see and what we hear. A synesthetic experience that potentially involves all senses.

The key words miracle and milestone will be a duality that mirror each other. Often, we realize that unexpected events can be identified as a threshold, therefore, in prospective, considered as a “milestone” that affected everything afterwards.

We will continue the practice used in the process of “Lost Accidentally”, when we used, as sources of inspiration, a collection of interviews to create a cloud of themes. Interviews of the participants and of other people and friends. Real interviews and fictional interviews. To compile the list of questions we will get inspired by psychological studies, for example by Arthur Aron research “The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness.” In his research, Aron assembled 36 predefined questions designed for dialogue between two strangers, so that they gradually become more and more personal. According to the study, openness to another person and placing ourselves in a position of vulnerability develops strong intimacy that will lead to immediate love.
We consider “love” as a miracle.
“When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else? What is your most terrible memory? How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people’s?”
All this material will be the starting point for improvisations and will generate physical actions and situations, poems and movement materials, composed and/or improvised. The words will shade the physicality and the shifts in emotional states will create narratives, charting new territories of dramaturgy and visualisation of surreal yet daily situations.