Kalle Nio: It is a gift to be able to experience boredom

Events & Activities dancefestivalsTop News Kalle Nio: It is a gift to be able to experience boredom Kalle Nio It Is A Gift To Be Able To Experience Boredom Relevant News Kalle Nio: It is a gift to be able to experience boredom 16 June 2026 Cyprus overhauls taxi laws for first time in over two decades 16 June 2026 Warm and sunny week ahead with possible storms on Friday 16 June 2026 Newsroom 16 June 2026 FacebookXWhatsAppEmailPrintViber The Finnish magician, visual artist and director sees boredom as a creative force and art as a form of magic that transforms reality. A director, visual artist and magician, he has dedicated his work to exploring the boundaries between the real and the imaginary, combining elements of theatre, dance, cinema and stage illusion. For Kalle Nio, magic is less an art of deception than a means of shifting our perspective on reality. His new production “Tempo”, presented in Limassol as part of the Cyprus Contemporary Dance Festival, revolves around time: its fluidity, its subjective experience. The Finnish artist speaks about the creative value of boredom, the importance of collective attention, and magic as a tool for understanding the world. What first drew you to time as an artistic subject, and what questions were you hoping to investigate through this work? I have always been fascinated by time, its elusive nature, our inability to fully understand it, and the intriguing possibility of time travel. My background is in cinema, where shifting through time, using slow motion, jumps, and other temporal manipulations is commonplace. What interests me is the challenge of bringing these possibilities into the theatrical space. I am also deeply interested in the relationship between time, rhythm, and movement. The word Tempo itself refers to both time and rhythm, making it a fitting title for the work. In Tempo, time is present both as the subject of the performance and as the condition of the performance itself. It is about the moment we spend together in a dark theatre, away from our screens, focusing collectively, if only for a brief time, on the very nature of time itself. What interests you more about those moments that suddenly reveal the fragility of existence? I suppose the classical idea of memento mori reveals itself in these moments. At the same time, it exposes the irrational nature of many of our fears. We are often afraid of the unknown, even though statistically most accidents happen in the comfort and familiarity of our own homes. I am also intrigued by the idea of making a piece from something either very small or impossibly large. I have never been particularly interested in stories for their own sake. For me, almost anything can become fascinating material. What matters is not so much the subject itself, but the way it is approached and transformed. The question is less what you make a work about and more how you make it. How did your artistic dialogue with Fernando Melo evolve during the creation of “Tempo”, and where did your respective disciplines challenge one another? We met Fernando through social media, and after chatting for some time, we decided to work together. However, we only met in person for the first time during the initial rehearsals. One might think this could have gone horribly wrong, that we might not have gotten along, or that something fundamental would not have clicked. But from day one, we worked as if we shared one mind, like brothers, each of us completing and extending the other’s thoughts. I have never experienced such a fluid collaboration before, where artistic decisions never became points of conflict. Instead, the path forward always felt evident to both of us. Snapshot from “Tempo” Do you recognise something specifically Finnish in your own artistic outlook, or do you resist such cultural labels? To be honest, I sometimes feel like an outsider in the Finnish performing arts scene. Much of the theatre made in Finland does not really resonate with me. I also rarely perform in Finland, working more often internationally. At the same time, it is clear that the environment in which we live and grow inevitably shapes our thinking and artistic sensibilities. Perhaps this influence is more visible to those who see my work than it is to me myself. Do you think contemporary audiences still long to be deceived, or are they searching for something deeper when they encounter illusion? For me, deception is a secondary aim. What I try to achieve with illusions is a sense of impossibility, an impression that perhaps anything could be possible. It is less about tricking the audience than about creating a feeling of the unreal, opening a space for imagining impossibilities. Rather than challenging the viewer to solve the method, I want to invite them into a shared play of perception, offering a space and time in which they can linger and reflect on these kinds of magical, dreamlike states. Looking back, what did magic teach you about human perception that continues to inform your artistic practice today? When you study magic, it genuinely changes your point of view on the world, on human perception, and on psychological reality across the board. I often feel that magic should be taught in schools, as it reveals something fundamental about human nature. I have studied magic since I was very young, and I feel it has profoundly shaped my personality, my thinking, and the way I approach both life and art. It is almost as if, once you see it, you cannot unsee it anymore. Many people think of magic as the art of hiding. Yet your work often seems concerned with revealing something. What truths can illusion uncover? I started doing magic when I was very young, and for me, magic was the first expressive language I could truly understand. However, as I grew older, I began to feel that magic was too limiting as an art form, so I went on to study fine arts. During my studies, though, I came to a different realisation: magic is an art form. The more I studied both art and magic, the more I understood that, as Alan Moore suggests, any art form, whether painting, literature, or performance, is, in a sense, magic. There is no real difference. What role do dreams, imagination and the irrational play in helping us understand reality? Art has the power to change the world in much the same way that magic does, by transforming the perspective of its audience. It alters how we perceive reality, and in doing so, it changes reality itself. As Picasso famously said, “Art is a lie that makes us realise the truth.” Following that thought, one could argue that magicians are among the greatest artists of all, because they can make us believe in almost anything, and through that belief, reveal something true about ourselves and the world around us. We live in a culture dominated by speed, distraction and endless streams of information. Has our collective experience of time fundamentally changed during your lifetime? I suppose so. One of the unfortunate things about children’s lives today is that they no longer really have to be bored. There are so many ways to stay entertained that boredom as an experience seems to have almost disappeared. Yet I think boredom is often one of the greatest sources of creativity. It is in those empty, unstructured moments that imagination tends to emerge. Because of that, I sometimes worry about what is lost when boredom is no longer allowed to exist. Live performance requires a rare form of collective attention. What is the cultural value of people gathering together to focus on a shared experience? It’s truly important. I think live performance can also be a source of boredom, and I feel that is something valuable to have in our lives. It is not my goal to make anyone bored during my shows, but I used to get annoyed when a performance or play made me feel bored. Now I see that differently. I have come to cherish that feeling, and I think it can be a gift, to be able to experience boredom, and to stay with it rather than immediately escape it. What do you think is at stake culturally if we lose that capacity for collective attention? Simone Weil famously wrote that “attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” Although this was written in the 1940s, I think it is more true today than ever. In a world of constant distraction, attention has become a scarce resource. It is ultimately up to us to decide where we direct it, and to whom we offer it. In that sense, attention becomes a form of care, even a form of ethics. I believe that what we choose to give our attention to will, in turn, shape the kind of world we create. “Tempo”, directed by Kalle Nio and choreographed by Fernando Melo, is presented on Sunday, June 21 at 8.30pm at the Rialto Theatre as part of the 27th Cyprus Contemporary Dance Festival. Tickets: rialto.interticket.com Subscribe to our Newsletter Latest News Cyprus overhauls taxi laws for first time in over two decades Warm and sunny week ahead with possible storms on Friday No more paying for your carry-on: EU seals landmark passenger rights deal Cyprus rules out permanent Greek and French troop deployments for now Citizens complain of planning amnesty delays A sandpaper for democracy From my notebook: what others wrote off as a pointless mission impossible Follow en.philenews on Google News and be the first to know all the news about Cyprus and the world.