Emmi Kaasalainen

Agorafonia

Agorafonia is a sound-and-movement composition in four parts for three performers. The work emerged through embodied compositional explorations in Helsinki’s underpasses, parks and urban fringe spaces, where the performers listened to the reverberation of concrete, the hum of ventilation systems, the pulse of paving stones, electrical buzzing, traffic noise and fleeting encounters.

These urban traces have become embodied through vocal and movement material. All sound in the performance is produced live by the performers through their bodies. Agorafonia was created through shared presence and an equal relationship between sound and movement, both emerging simultaneously from the same living, sensing body, continuously shaping one another.

The vibrations of the city have been absorbed into the performers’ bodies and transformed into moving and sounding together. Rather than representing the city, Agorafonia asks how an environment can continue resonating through the body and become a shared embodied experience.

The four-part composition moves from listening to the space and its resonances towards polyphony, dispersal and reorganization. Composed structures meet improvisation throughout the work. Different voices and movement trajectories separate, overlap and collide allowing different forms of togetherness to emerge and submerge.

The title combines the Greek agora, a public gathering place, the Portuguese word agora, “now”, and -phonia, referring to sounding together. The work asks what happens when the traces of public space become embodied, and when listening becomes a form of gathering. Agorafonia is part of the wider artistic enquiry Kaupunkikeho (Urban Body) exploring how sound, movement and ritual can create temporary experiences of connection.