Hanna Tuulikki: Deer Dancer

Gallery 1

Deer Dancer is a new cross-artform project by artist, composer, performer Hanna Tuulikki, investigating the mimesis of deer, specifically representations within dance from across cultures. The work examines how the imitation of deer behaviour constructs 'wilderness' as the site for the cultivation of hetero-masculinity in 'gender performance' and how hunting mythologies shape and impact real ecologies. Exploring these interconnections, Deer Dancer is an explicit, contemporary, life-crisis ritual for a damaged planet.

Commissioned by Edinburgh Printmakers, Tuulikki’s new audiovisual installation, incorporating music and costumed choreography on film, is presented alongside a series of visual score print works made during a residency in the studio.

Deer Dancer credits:

Characters:
The Monarch, The Warrior, The Young Buck, The Fool, The Old Sage

• Costumes by Hanna Tuulikki
• Costume fabrication assistance by Lydia Honeybone
• Consultancy by Liz Honeybone

Two-channel film and sound installation:

• Performed & directed by Hanna Tuulikki
• Character development and choreography by Will Dickie, Peter McMaster and Hanna Tuulikki
• Dramaturgy by Peter McMaster
• Movement direction by Will Dickie
• Sound composed and recorded by Hanna Tuulikki
• Sound mixed with Pete Smith
• Cinematography by Andrew Begg
• Edited with Laura Carreira
• On set wardrobe management by Lydia Honeybone
• Production management by Amy Porteous

Print works:

• Highland Fling Visual Score 1-7, blind deboss and emboss with gold foil
• Abbots Bromley Horn Dance Visual Score 1-4, blind deboss and emboss with gold foil
• Yaqui Deer Dance Visual Score 1-3, blind deboss and emboss with gold foil

Developed through conversations and interviews with tradition bearers and academics, including Felipe Molina (Yaqui tradition bearer and translator), Larry Evers (American Indian Studies, The University of Arizona), Jack Brown (Abbots Bromley Horn Dance tradition bearer and historian), Doug and Joyce Gilbert (Trees for Life); by observing a number of dances and participating in rituals, including the Yaqui Deer Dance (Pascua Yaqui Easter ceremonies, Old Pascua, Tucson, Arizona, March 2018), Abbots Bromley Horn Dance (Abbots Bromley, September 2017 and September 2018); and direct learning with Sandra Robertson (Highland Fling), Indalecio 'Carlos' Moreno Matuz (Yaqui Deer Dance), Gary Faulkenberry (animal tracking, March, July 2018), Allan Common (deer stalking at Trees for Life, Dundreggan Conservation Estate, autumn 2017 and autumn 2018). 

Thanks to Peter Ananin of Woodland Tannery, Joe Etchell of Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Daniel Warren, Nick Bone, Kat Jones, Rob Fairley, Caroline Reagh, Tyler Meier, Wendy Burk and Anupa Gardner.

Commissioned by Edinburgh Printmakers, funded by Creative Scotland.

Research and development supported by Magnetic North Artist’s Attachment, funded by the Jerwood Charitable Foundation and Creative Scotland.

Additional support from Hope Scott Trust, The Work Room, University of Arizona Poetry Center, Trees for Life, Bothy Project, University of Glasgow, 16 Nicholson Street Gallery & Arts Collective, Glasgow School of Art, and CCA: Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow.