25.07Naissaar island, Omar's barn, 8 p.m. Ferry Monica leaves from Seaplane harbour at 4 p.m. Renate Valme: PUNGIn what sense? Idea and director: Renate Valme Premiere 14 November 2012 Tallinn “In Estonian “pung” means “bud”, but it is also the genitive case of “punk” – so it is definitely a mixture of buds and punk, plus something more. But no worries, it will all clear up during the performance. Or at least most of it. And, since in English “pung” is a synonym for “sleigh”, we kindly ask you to sit on the sleigh and ride into “pungworld”.” The freelance choreographer and director Renate Valme is an original performance artist who has presented her productions at numerous theatre and dance festivals in Europe, Scandinavia, Asia and the Baltic countries. She has been twice awarded the Philip Morris Eesti independent dance prize as the Year's Success and Active Person. She founded her dance troup Kompanii Nii in 2012, whose main expression form is physical theatre. Renate Valme defines this as the theatre with the greater than usual emphasis on physical self-expression, the solution however being strongly in the theatre key. 'Pung' is Kompanii Nii's first production which was nominated for the best dance production of Estonian Theatre Prize. In with Renate Valme's creative style the verbal presentation of the content is rather laconic as she considers it important that the production would speak for itself – as part of the audience she also prefers the experience of the 'blank slate'. 'The most appropriate would be to apply my favourite genre definition of 'tragicomedy' – just like the life is tragicomic in its esssence.' Renate's productions are exactly that – a mixture of outrageous humour, ingeniuos images and poetry. As the film maker Andres Maimik says about the production 'Pung': 'Renate can really create images and shift phenomena, modify bodies and spray witticisms so that one time it is a complete aha and another time it is an absolute oho' |