Kaja Kann, choreographer and circus artist, Estonia
Kim Solin, philosopher-researcher, Finland/Sweden
Juha Valkeapää, musician-composer-performer, Finland
Girilal Baars, musician-composer-performer, Sweden

The project “Whose Truth is it?” is originally the idea of Girilal and Juha, whohave been discussing for a couple of years the idea of a vocal-non-verbal performance of the novel Kallocain by Karin Boye. 2010 is the 70th anniversary of the publication of Kallocain and it seems like a fortuitous time to present that play/performance to an audience (it is also the 110th anniversary of Boye’s birth, incidentally).

The novel Kallocain was published in 1940. The book is very much shaped by Boye’s experiences in Hitler’s Germany and in Stalin’s Russia. In the book one totalitarian state is at war with another totalitarian state. The main character invents a truth serum, which when administered will make an individual speak the truth. The drug naturally becomes the means to search for traitors and dissenters. There is also a more personal story in the book revolving around the central characters Leo and Linda Kall.

The intriguing thing about the book is that no truth is actually uncovered! The people who are given the drug end up rambling about some imaginary place they are hoping to escape to or some particular fears that they have. The State was hoping to uncover some plot, but instead finds only that it’s citizens are deeply unhappy. And in a logical progression, the head of state security himself is found guilty of seditious ideas...

There are two aspects this group thinks are important to explore.

(i) The first is the concept of truth in musical terms. Building aconcert/performance/installation that makes the audience active participants,not only passive listeners. (We have had one idea that the audience will beserved with a truth serum – Kallocain – and perhaps divided into thematic groups of different truths.) There are many different kinds of truths in KarinBoye’s book and we think that these are a good place to begin our exploration.What if the music could pose questions which will make the audience reflect onthe meaning of truth—only to find out that truth is an ever-evolving monster which can't be captured? In short, we would like to find a way to capture the ambiguity and complexity of truth, with the help of the audience and with our music/performance.

(ii) The second aspect we really want explore is about the performance itself. Both Juha and Girilal are vocal artist and their idea has always been to avoid language completely and to focus instead on the issues of Kallocain.However, some kind of narrative will be present and the story of the main characters—their search for individual salvation—is one that illustrates very well the ideas of the novel. So, our challenge is to present—at least in part—a narrative using no words. This is important to us because improvisation is an important aspect of this work and the ability to convey specific meaning or narrative without words (or pantomime, etc.) is something that can often be tangible, yet remain just out of grasp.

The theme of truth is borne out on several other levels, we feel. For instance, improvisation has an ideological connection to the search for truth. And of course, on some level Art itself is a search for one or several truths. But there is, we feel, an important contemporary relevance in Boye’s Kallocain andher exploration of the concepts and implications of truth. We are, at this moment living in a society where we like to assume a lot about our freedom, our rights and indeed our ability to seek the truth. Many times we even presume to have found the truth! But does more freedom mean more truth? Do more voices—e.g. the media explosion through the internet—mean more truth?And how many truths can there be: one for Scandinavia, one for the EU, onefor me, etc.? But, lest we forget, even though our knowledge of reality is influenced by many relative factors and therefore possibly false – nevertheless there is a meaning to the search for knowledge and understanding and trying to establish some sort of common, but not necessarily universal truth.In “Whose Truth is it?” we would like to attempt to address these issues,through the focal lens of Kallocain and through the use of voice and music.

About the participants

Kaja Kann is a choreographer and circus artist. She is a founding member of artists' group United Dancers of Zuga, and performed her work in Europe and USA. She has been awarded for the Best Estonian dance performance in 2004 and 2006. Since 2000 she has been running a circus school for youth OMA tsirkus. Kaja Kann lives and works in Tallinn.

Valkeapää is a vocal virtuoso, being used to nonverbal performances. His performances rarely take place in conventional music halls or theatres, but instead in squares, streets, museums, galleries. He is accustomed to working with people coming from different backgrounds.

Girilal Baars is a singer and composer working with electroacousticmusic, traditional vocal music and improvisation. Although they had known each other for some years, Juha and Girilal first collaborated, together with the Finnish vocal quartet Äijä, on a piece called Male Spaces in 2007, an improvised vocal-theatre piece about male games and roles.

Kim Solin is a philosopher with a background in mathematics, who could be said to strive towards an understanding of truth through examining what it amounts to in mathematics when compared to other aspects of reality. At the same time Kim is interested in Christianity and its concept of truth. Kim and Girilal met in Uppsala, where Kim is currently pursuing his doctorate in philosophy.

We are hoping that our motley quartet is suitably equipped to try and tackle the challenges of Truth, improvisation, non-verbal narration and Karin Boye’s Kallocain. We hope that discussions and workshop-like meetings dealing with the many aspects of what we would like to do, will enrich our understanding of the medias in which we are working, as well as the tools at our disposal. If nothing else, the very arrogance of trying to understand truth—as well as attempting to perform it—should guarantee a lively and rewarding process over the next year.

GB