Scores for Decay and Transformation
Maija Hirvanen - University of the Arts Helsinki/Theatre Academy
Wednesday, 15 April 2026
16:00
STIAS, Auditorium
Abstract
As one of the artistic tools in my research, I use a choreographic ever evolving method called Mycoscores / Choreospores I started developing in 2022 during my THIRD Research Fellowship at DAS/ University of the Arts Amsterdam. In 2023, I made an artistic print publication based on the method frame. It consists of 31 cards, each presenting a single score and an accompanying booklet. The scores delve into movement as a pathway in more-than-human attunement. At the same time, they act as proposals for working with the human body as an interconnected, sensitive entity. They propose starting points for dancing, weaving social connections together, composing and exploring performativity. Mycoscores / Choreospores are based on verbs that could be playfully considered both fungal and human. One of the scores is titled Decaying.
For Decay Without Mourning: Future Thinking Heritage Practices conference, I propose three new artistic research scores around decay for my presentation. The presentation begins with a 20-minute introduction of decay as fungal choreography and the processes of fungal life that initiate changes in the environment. This is followed by a 40-minute practical artistic research session where fungal-choreographic scores related to a decay as a transformative process are explored. The practices are guided by a question: what renews in the entanglement of biological and artistic decay and how? What consequences does this decay have; what is born out of decay?
My presentation is joined by mycologist Peter McCoy as collaborator. Together, we initiate a setting where perspectives and practices of choreography, performance, artistic research and mycology work alongside to reframe relations between bodies, their milieus, and decay.
Biography
Maija Hirvanen is a choreographer, performance maker and artistic researcher. Her interests range from the relationship between art and different belief systems and ways of re-learning to questions of embodiment and the more-than-human approach in performance and choreography. She makes performances on stages and in places, writes, researches, and teaches. She has curated, led and contributed to several international artistic and transdisciplinary performance laboratories. Hirvanen’s work has been presented at festivals and venues e.g. Tanz im August/Hebbel am Ufer/Berlin, ImpulsTanz/Vienna, Sadler’s Wells/London, SPRING Festival/Utrecht, Seoul Performing Arts Festival, Rencontres chorégraphiques internationales de Seine- Saint-Denis, SAAL Biennaal/Tallinn and Dansens Hus/Stockholm, Zodiak, Kiasma, Baltic Circle Festival and Helsinki Festival. Maija is an alumni THIRD Research Fellow/DAS/University of the Arts Amsterdam. Currently, she is the Artistic Professor in Dance 2024–2028, an honorary title granted by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland and Doctoral Researcher at the University of the Arts Helsinki / Theatre Academy, conducting her research on fungal choreography and performance.
Peter McCoy is an applied mycology researcher and educator who has endeavored to understand and share the world of fungi with others for over 20 years. He is the author of Radical Mycology: A Treatise on Seeing and Working with Fungi and The Mycocultural Revolution: Transforming Our World With Mushrooms, Lichens, and Other Fungi, the founder of the mycology advocacy organization Radical Mycology, director of the Fungi Film Festival, and the founder and lead instructor at Mycologos, an applied mycology school and experimental fungi farm based in Portland, Oregon (USA). His work with fungi includes years of field work in mycoremediation practices, writing on the history of human-fungal relations, and the presentation of novel hypothesis on the nature of fungal growth, communication, and evolution. His work has been featured in several films and books about fungi.
