löyly

of salt on my skin journeys through the different possibilities of queer existence, of being in the self, of moving alongside the other, and of becoming beyond the horizon of the present. In queering traditional Baltic mythology and sauna cultures outside of their geographical origins, this 5-hour site-specific performance in Folkestone explores place through inserting the queer narrative within embodied experiences of tradition through movement. “Löyly,” which is described in Finnish folklore as both the holistic spirit of the body as well as the steam arising from the hot rocks inside the sauna, this durational work ventures across the actions of collective breathing, sweating, seeking and becoming in relation to the material and the ephemeral, and longs to find futurities for queer ritual through activating mythologies of the self and those surrounding, thus becoming newfound corporeal entities of 'löyly.'
Across 5-hours, the body journeys through 3 key locations: the abandoned Church bell, the old train station and finally the Sunny Sands arches in various movement-based and choreographic actions. The performance culminates at the seafront on the Sunny Sands arches with 10x dishevelled birch whisks wrapped onto the body enmeshed with aluminium wire. At 16.58pm, the body hoists itself up into a bridge position, holds it until all the muscles quiver in tension and exhaustion. By 17.01pm, the body collapses by the seafront as the birch whisks cushion it along the soft sand bed into a deep exhale.