Playwright & Theatre-maker
“Beautiful and disturbing poetic drama”
It´s True I Love You All So Much – A play written for computer as the performer/performance/stage. An autobiographical piece about self-harm, that argues healing is boring and repetitive and still worth it. Includes a black hole that writes dating bios as side business.
Playwright.
Älä jätä jälkiä / Leave No Trace – A play about trauma, abusive relationships and how the memories get scrambled afterwards. Premiere changed from embodied to online due to pandemic restrictions, so the play was adapted into letters (memories we can´t change) and online recollections that tried to grasp that which had to be once forgotten.
Playwright/Dramaturg for digital concept/Digital creation.
Eco-Chambers – Exit Productions collaboration – Research & Development piece that led into a show within Google Docs. Ever fancied being a demi-god? Do you know how the world should be put right? This is the show where you get to do just that. And maybe save the bees.
Collaborator.
Apple Blossoms – Shortlisted for Alpine Fellowship Theatre Prize 2020.
Playwright.
The Other World – currently in development. An immersive waiting room on our way to Utopia.
Playwright/Concept.
“This play demonstrates a very high level of skill navigating cutting-edge forms of performance-making in service to and in harmony with its complex themes, all centered around the expression of self, need, and pain intrinsic to histories of self-harm. This challenging theme is met with kind and unblinking forthrightness that is most discernable in instances of audience interaction. Impressively high levels of creativity and delicacy are especially shown in designing audience interactions – – – “
Feedback from the play dramaturg, Dr. Sarah Hoover.
PREMIERE 30TH OF SEPTEMBER 2021
Directed by Rena Bryson
Produced by Eva’s Echo Theater Company
Playwright Jenni Nikinmaa
IT´S TRUE IN IFTR WORLD CONGRESS:
Accepted Paper: Hoover, Sarah. “Inside is the new outside now”: sharing spaces in the multi-modal play It’s True I Love You All So Much. International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR) World Congress 2022: Shifting Centres (In the Middle of Nowhere), 22 June 2022.
IT´S TRUE IN GALWAY ADVERTISER, Tuesday, 21st of September, 2021
“Play by Jenni Nikinmaa will explore mental health, self-harm, family dynamics, and relationships.” By Kernan Andrews
THE BIGGER PICTURE – Blog, Theatre Preview by Ashley Cota
Älä jätä jälkiä / Leave No Trace
Älä jätä jälkiä on etäesitys, jota seurataan tietokoneen, kuulokkeiden ja postitse
lähetettävän materiaalin kautta. Esitys on
muokattu immersiivisestä teoksesta etäesitykseksi pandemian takia.
“Ettei jättäisi jälkiä, pitää kadottaa kaikki, millä
jälkiä jätetään.”
Näytelmässä tyttö (Eeva Putro) palaa toistuvasti omaan tahdottomuuteensa suhteessa ihmiseen, joka ei tahdo sitoutua, muttei myöskään päästää irti. Näytelmä on tarkka ja tunnistettava kuvaus siitä,kuinka kaksi ihmistä jättää toisensakohtaamatta toisen taipuessa ja myöntyessä mihin tahansa ja toisen käyttäessä tilaisuutta hyväkseen. Tyttö tapaa miehen tai mies tytön, eikä niin olisi pitänyt koskaan tapahtua.
Läpi näytelmän rikottujen aikatodellisuuksien kumpikin pyrkii kohti käsivarsia, jotka eivät
kanna – kunnes tyttö päättää tehdä toisin.
Jenni Nikinmaan kirjoittaman tekstin
ensimmäinen versio esitettiin KOM-teatterin Sokkodraamassa 4.12.2017 Lauri Maijalan ohjaamana.
Leave No Trace was written as an immersive performance, but due to the pandemic, we created a digital version that happened through letters, video calls and click-through videos.
“To not leave a trace, I have to lose everything that leaves marks.”
The play tells the story of a girl who constantly returns to her own unwillingness to let go of a man who doesn´t want to commit but won´t let her move on, either. It´s a recognizable description of two people who end up being toxic when the other one bends to every wish and whim, and the other one gladly abuses this.
Within the play, they both try to reach arms that can´t carry – until the girl finally decides otherwise.
The first version of this play was performed as part of KOM-Theatre´s blind drama series (rehearsed readings), directed by Lauri Maijala.
ENSI-ILTA / PREMIERE 17.2.2021
Ohjaus/Director: Kati Keskihannu
Käsikirjoitus, dramaturgia, konsepti / Playwright, dramaturg, digital concept: Jenni Nikinmaa
Tyttö / The Girl: Eeva Putro
Miehen ääni / Man´s voice: Jussi Järvinen
Mies videolla / Man in the video: Cathal Flannery
Nuket ja nuketus / Puppets and puppetry: Maija Westerholm
Sävellys/Composer: Anitra Bohman-Penttinen
Videokuvaus & esityskuvat/Videos & Pictures from the show: Olli-Matti Rantanen
Kuvat & Graafinen suunnittelu / Pictures & Graphic Design: Nils Krogell
Eco Chambers
Eco-Chambers online version was developed as part of Research & Development period at Exit Productions. It´s a collaborative project that has been presented, for example, at A Maze Festival in Berlin 2020 and at Bath Spa 2021.
Apple Blossoms
The Other World
In development.
An immersive waiting room through which you get to travel to Utopia. A train station with strange passengers heading to imaginary destinations. Life. Death.
Pictures from a work-in-progress done as part of Theatre57 TEST-residency. Actor Julie Quinn.
Jenni Nikinmaa 