Kalle Nio & Fernando Melo (Finland-Sweden-Brazil)

Tempo marks the first collaboration between magician and visual artist Kalle Nio and choreographer Fernando Melo. The performance is based on a text by Harry Salmenniemi, as well as wordless scenes built around dance and stage illusions, where time slows down, reverses, and comes to a halt. Tempo prompts questions about how we truly experience time and in what ways it can be understood. At the same time, it confronts the audience with their own temporality. The music for the performance is composed by Samuli Kosminen.

Fernando Melo has created a choreography that defies gravity and time for three exceptional performers: Slovenian dancer and puppeteer Barbara Kanc, Italian dancer Luigi Sardone, and Swedish dancer-acrobat Winston Reynolds. Dance, theatre, objects, magic, and circus merge into a breathtaking, dizzying journey. Both the performers' movements and the scenography push the limits of the impossible to the extreme… and go even further.

Through magic and movement, Tempo invites audiences to pause, reflect, and truly feel the present moment.

Kalle Nio returns to FIMFA with a show that confounds and dazzles our senses. Tempo has just been selected for the 2026 Venice Biennale. Absolutely magnetic and incredible: not to be missed!

BIO

Kalle Nio is a stage director, visual artist and magician. He works in the fields of visual theater, experimental film, new magic, contemporary circus and visual arts. Nio's group WHS is one of the most internationally active Finnish performance art groups, with their works performed in over 200 different theatres in more than 40 countries. Nio has received several awards for his work in magic, visual arts, and stage productions. He holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of the Arts Helsinki.

The previous stage productions by Nio have been produced by, among others, Fondation d’entreprise Hermès / New Settings, Théâtre de la Cité internationale Paris, Helsinki Festival, EMMA - Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Kiasma-Helsinki Museum of Contemporary Art, Kumu Art Museum - Estonia, Oulu Theatre, Trident – Scène Nationale de Cherbourg-Octeville.

His work has already surprised audiences in previous editions of FIMFA through the high quality of the correlation between real and virtual images, as seen in Lähtö - Départ at the opening of FIMFA Lx14; Nopeussokeus - Speed Blindness (FIMFA Lx11); and Keskusteluja - Discussions (FIMFA Lx10). In partnership with São Luiz Teatro Nacional, he presented Cutting Edge (2017) and The Green (2018). He also led one of the workshops for the Tarumba's training Project Funicular in 2015.

Brazilian-born Fernando Melo has built his career in Europe as a dancer and choreographer. He often references magic and stage illusions in his works. Melo has choreographed for numerous high-profile dance companies such as GöteborgsOperans Danskompani, Skånes Dansteater, National Dance Company Wales, Introdans (Netherlands), Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz in Munich, Luzerner Theater (Switzerland), Aterballetto (Italy), and Ballet Hispanico New York (U.S.A.). He has also choreographed for opera productions, including recent examples at Vocal Futures in London (U.K.), Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse (France), Oper Köln (Germany), La Monnaie in Brussels (Belgium), Teatro Comunale di Bologna (Italy), and the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen (Denmark).

_CREDITS

_{Concept: Kalle Nio, Fernando Melo, Harry Salmenniemi Direction: Kalle Nio Choreopraphy: Fernando Melo Text: Harry Salmenniemi Performers: Barbara Kanc, Winston Reynolds, Luigi Sardone Music and sound design: Samuli Kosminen Costumes: Georgina Spencer Lighting design: Johannes Hallikas Stage direction: Hedda Liukkala Props: Matti Niinimäki, Sami Paavola, Kalle Nio Tour manager: Axel Satgé / Yellow Everything Photography, trailer: Kalle Nio Production: WHS / Kalle Nio Coproduction: Helsinki Festival, Lutkovno Gledališče Ljubljana Support: Alfred Kordelin Foundation, Saastamoinen Foundation}

_{www.kallenio.com  /  www.fernando-melo.com}