I feel like I’ve been planning and replanning, writing and rewriting Normal Cake, Please with my beloved colleagues Nina Larissa Bassett (DK) and Ivo Briedis (LV) forever! Well, from 2016, actually, and we would’t be here as happy and proud without Jamie MacDonald (FI/CA), who joined us in 2018. Then pandemic hit the world, we had to postpone, but finally, this summer, accompanied with the most amazing team of artists…
World Premiere in Helsinki, 1-4 July, 2021
Normal Cake, Please world premiere is on 1 July at 6 pm in St Paul’s Church (Paavalinkirkko), Helsinki, as a part of Kapsäkki Goes Pride & Helsinki Pride programs. Other performances 2 July at 6pm and 4 July at 3pm.
Read about the performance from Helsingin Sanomat 30.6.2021
Working group: Nina Larissa Bassett (DK), Ivo Briedis (LV), Janne Saarakkala (FI), Jamie MacDonald (FI/CA), Raisa Omaheimo (FI), Kira Riikonen (FI), Dajo Vande Putte (DK), Viha Piirakka (FI), Varanka (FI), Paula Koivunen (FI), Janne Pellinen (FI), Mikko Helenius (FI), Thomas Burø (DK), Beáta Kublik (DK)
About Normal Cake, Please
English speaking Normal Cake, Please is a fictional wedding in two acts taking place in four intimate spaces and a church. In the intimate spaces you get to see two of the four main characters preparing for the wedding. Then you experience the wedding ceremony in the church. The underlining aim is open a space with the audience to queer normality and normalise queer.
The performance is lightly participatory. You are a wedding guest, urged to gossip with other wedding guests and taught some easy dance movements to use in the ceremony.
Normal Cake, Please is a collaboration between Finnish, Danish and Latvian live art professionals produced by Uneasy Listening Society (DK) and (in Helsinki) Music Theatre Kapsäkki. The project is supported by Kulturkontakt Nord, Kone Foundation and Arts Promotion Centre Finland.
Performances in Helsingør, 27-31 July, 2021
Normal Cake, Please will be also performed in Karmeliter monastery (Our Lady Monastery) in Helsingør, Denmark, 27-31 July as a part of Passage Festival program.
Background: Pillow talk with the eurotrash!
In 2006 I joined forces with Nina and Ivo to explore intimacy, site specific theatre and the end of the world. The result was the hotel-performance In the Nude. We worked independently and together to create a piece that took audiences on divided journeys through 5-star hotels to meet with the Eurotrashers: Leo, Viesturs and Angela, our characters, who shared a nostalgia for the 1980s and special sort of intimacy. In the Nude was performed at festivals in Riga, Copenhagen, Montreal and Helsinki in 2008-2009.
In Normal Cake, Please Leo, Viesturs and Angela return with Leo’s fiancé Jack!
Photo: Jonna Wikström
