Physics and puppetry combined
Photos of this page: Jussi Virkkumaa, Miika Storm, Michael Lozano
Trial & Theatre is a new, process-oriented performance collective concentrating on experiments and a conceptual approach to puppetry. Nano Steps is their first foray into the world of physics and material sciences, as well as their first series of staged pieces. The objective of the group is a free and unruly process of research in which the performances of science and puppetry collide, and blur each other’s boundaries.
Nano steps is a series of performances that indulges into recent applied physics technologies and approaches them with the viewpoint of contemporary puppetry.
What would be the world’s smallest puppet?
The project has produced two performances:
Nano Steps - a Particle Performance
Nano Steps - Into the Lab
Next Stops
Physics laboratory as puppetry.
The first step of microscopic puppetry was taken in Helsinki City Theatre, premiered in August 2023 in Studio Pasila.
Can be performed in big frontal audience theatre spaces
About a Particle Performance
“ - - this is science removed from the grind of life in academia – this is science as a quiet, personal, and almost spiritual experience. Science as a relationship with an arcane being, science as a séance with microscopic ghosts, science as communion with the nanoscale divine. Experiencing this alongside her, it reminded us of why we do what we do.”
Cornell physicists Anna Barth & Kemper Ludlow
“Romantic object theatre, cool club vibe and precision of laboratories melt together in irresistible way”
“This performance is for everyone who wants that theatre will surf on the top of skills of today’s science”
“Transforms perception of what is theatre”"
“Enchanting performance”
“Damn I enjoyed it!”
Helsingin Sanomat
”As a project, Nano Steps doesn’t stay only in making the show, but reaches to create deeper connections and collaboration between performance art and science (discussions with scientists and meeting them in different universities). The research-based approach for puppet theater and its questions resonates also in the field of physics: Who manipulates who? Could a puppet and puppeteer ever really understand each other and what is the relationship between them in a dramatic sense?”
Suvi Tuominen, Curator in Stage for Contemporary Performance, Helsinki
A second step of microscopic puppetry. A softly participatory performance for smaller spaces/performance areas
Collective calibration to the microworld
Premiered in April 2024 in Alfred ve dvoře, Prague, Czech Republic
About Into the Lab
”To me the performance was like a game, what I can be a part of, enjoying, without the need of understanding everything.”
- Turun Sanomat (Finnish newspaper)
”Made theatre great again”
- A spectator in Prague
“Loved every millisecond of it.”
-Sodja Zupanc-Lotker
Trial & Theatre is a theatre collective working by devising; building shows through practical research and experimentation in and out of the rehearsal room. All members of the team hold equal authorship over the works, as ideas and work flow in a horizontal hierarchy throughout the creation process.
Working group
Director: Aati Hanikka
Dramaturg: Iiris Syrjä
Sound designer-musician: Valtteri Alanen
Performer: En Ping Yu
Lighting designer: Jere Suontausta
Further reading
Puppetry techniques out of applied physics / Fysiikan sovelluksia nukketeatteritekniikoiksi
An article diving into the possible techniques of future puppetry the group explored in their travels to Cornell University, published in Aura of Puppets blog. (in Finnish)
Aati Hanikka & Valtteri Alanen
“Have your demos ready, the puppeteers are coming!” - A physicist’s point of view on a puppetry performance
Cornell University physicists from Ithaca, New York visited Helsinki to see the performance representing their work and wrote about the experience in Aura of Puppets blog.
Anna Barth & Kemper Ludlow
The character of a new play is so small that it can be perceived only through the lens of a microscope - see how a performer and a micro particle collaborate
Finnish national broadcast Yle popped in the rehearsals in Studio Pasila. (in Finnish)
Nano Steps - Music from a performance
A soundtrack of the particle performance available in every major platform.
Valtteri Alanen
Post-Performance talk with artists and physicists recorded in Studio Pasila
Attending Trial&Theatre artists Aati Hanikka,Valtteri Alanen, Iiris Syrjä and Cornell University physicists Anna Barth and Kemper Ludlow.
Talk including for example: What was it there under the microscope? What did the physicist see when they watched puppeteers using the same equipment that they use every day, and a story about Aati picking up a phone and calling New York one morning.
Video by FZU, Czech Academy of Sciences
