UNDERGROWTH (THE FOREST OF MY FATHER) My father is a forest-owner. Since I was a child I have known of a special ‘grieving spruce’ in our forest that was officially protected by the father of my father. Last winter I asked my father to show it to me once more, so that I could show it to you, even if we are in another country and in another forest. The grieving spruce grows in a forest planted over eighty years ago, so by law and convention the forest it inhabits will soon be cut for timber and paper, before being re-planted. What will happen to the tree when its neighbours are cut down? What happens to my father when he sells the tree trunks? What happens to me when I inevitably inherit some of the woods from my to be deceased father? Undergrowth is a documentary theatre essay about my personal relationship to my fathers, personal relationship to my father’s forests, and natural relationship to the laws of supply and demand. A forest can be sold, but can it really be owned?
VALTTERI ALANEN is a performance maker, puppeteer and sound-designer. A graduate of Turku Arts Academy, Finland, and DAMU, Czech Republic, his work is at home between locations, resonates with the sounds between sounds, and lives from sharing space and time.
