TEMPO | Kalle Nio & Fernando Melo (Finland)

TEMPO is an immersive exploration of time: its acceleration, deceleration, and moments when time seems to stand still. At the heart of the performance is an everyday event transformed into something extraordinary, revealing the fragility of life through moments of falling, stumbling, and coming dangerously close to disaster.

Directed by visual artist and illusionist Kalle Nio, with choreography by Fernando Melo and music by Samuli Kosminen, "Tempo" combines text, movement, and mesmerizing stage illusions where time flows backward, gravity disappears, and the laws of nature lose their power. Dreamlike, wordless scenes alternate with rhythmic compositions for prepared metronomes and Harry Salmenniemi's sensitive text about the strange elasticity of time.

Utilizing magic, contemporary dance, elements of object theatre, music, and text used as an auditory layer rather than a semantic element of the performance, TEMPO invites viewers to pause, reflect, and truly feel the present moment.

Creative Team:
Conceptual Idea: Nio, Melo & Salmenniemi
Direction: Kalle Nio
Choreography: Fernando Melo
Text: Harry Salmenniemi
Performers: Barbara Kanc, Winston Reynolds, Luigi Sardone alternating with Iiro Näkki
Music and Sound Design: Samuli Kosminen
Costumes: Georgina Spencer
Lighting: Johannes Hallikas
Stage Manager / Rigger: Hedda Liukkala
Lighting Supervisor: June Horton–White
Touring Technician: Emilie Largier
Tour Planning and Management: „Yellow Everything”
Photography and Trailer: Kalle Nio

The HELIUM festival is funded by Lietuvos kultūros taryba and Vilniaus miesto savivaldybė, refreshed by mineral water „Vytautas”, with information partners LRT and DELFI.