It’s ok being in the same place for a while
(A Swedish translation of this text can be found here.)
I got to know Aino Ihanainen and Alexander Weibel Weibel a couple of years ago. Every time I met them, they had always just arrived or were just leaving. I was curious about their perspective on travelling for work, both because they have worked and travelled so much, and because they have worked and travelled so much as a couple. They also come from circus, which gives yet another perspective on how work travel can be organised. I asked them about all this. They gave me many answers, as well as stories from life on the road.
Aino Ihanainen and Alexander Weibel Weibel:
Alex: A big part of the job for everyone in the circus field is travel. Only if you are teaching in a school, you might be more stable in one spot. We usually travel to perform, to create a show or to give workshops. We go everywhere. In general, we travel in Europe, but we work all over the world. I was in Australia twice last year and in the US once this year. Soon we are going to China. Aino: We travel to different contexts where we know people and where we are invited: festivals or stages or educations. There are many in our field who travel like that. It’s the same for all our friends: Now they are here, then they are going there, and someone else comes to stay for some days. There is always this change in who is around. Alex: Because circus is so small – a much smaller circuit than for example dance – you quickly get to know people from all over the world. In general, circus artists are specialised in one thing that only they do. Also because of that, they tour a lot.
Aino: For me, the travelling started when I did my first solo after circus school in Finland. I got residencies around Europe and working opportunities. And then I got to work with the company Cirkör and travelled around Europe, the States and South America. The first time we were touring with Cirkör, it was such a change compared to the life I had before. It changed the meaning of home into life in a suitcase.
Alex: I did circus educations in Madrid, Russia and then Sweden. After that, I’ve been based here, and I met Aino when we were working in the same production for Cirkör six years ago. Touring gets you very close to people. It was actually one of the times when we were touring that Aino and I started to get to know each other more intimately. Aino: We had all kinds of ways of sneaking into hotel rooms. By the roof outside the window, for example. Alex: Yes, Aino climbed out the window and came to mine. We weren’t thinking of what we did as something serious from the beginning, so we wanted to keep a low profile. But then it grew. It became like that through working and spending so much time together.
Aino: After that we started to work together with our own things. Alex did his Master’s project and I was helping, but it ended up so that I was also in the performance. It worked well enough so we wanted to continue working together.
Alex: A lot of things are clearer now. Now we are together, before we weren’t. And now we do work together. We’re making a new show. We’re going to different residencies to rehearse: some in Sweden and then Spain, Prague and Riga. After that, we’re performing in China and Spain and Saint Petersburg and Finland with the previous piece we did. That show fits into the van. Aino: We won’t go to China with the van, though. Alex: And we travel quite a lot by plane in Europe, too.
Aino: Too much. Alex: If there were less flying, there would be less travel. We wouldn’t go to China to do three shows and come back. It would very much change how the circus world works.
Aino: Then the structures would need to change so that you could take the train or the bus all the way to China, having different stops along the route. But it’s also a question of time and money. Who has the time and money to travel for months? Alex: I think everything would have to change if we couldn’t fly. But it has canged before. Both with cheap flights and with YouTube. That’s been something very remote and exotic, and at some point it didn’t exist. One thing that has changed already in travel since we started working is that they are a lot stricter about luggage now. The violin is a bigger problem than before to take on board.
Aino: It’s crazy that it’s cheaper to fly than to take the train. Even within countries: flying from here to Gothenburg.
Alex: But we take the train if we’re in Sweden. To Finland we go by boat.
Aino: We often fly to Finland, as well. Alex: It depends on the gig and what we have to bring.
Aino: And the time frame. It takes so much longer to go by car or train.
Alex: We also go camping with the van for our own entertainment. Like this year, we have some months when we don’t know what we will do; so we will probably be… travelling. We like to be on the road. But there were a lot more shows before, with Cirkör. They always try to book as many shows as possible in a month. We try to do the opposite. We do the minimum, so that we can be free. We also try to get the gigs in nice places and stay there longer. Places where we haven’t been, warm places, or even cold places if it’s a bit out of the ordinary: something that is not this. Aino: Before, we travelled a lot with a group. Now it’s been more just the two of us, which is nice and sometimes horrible because we are very different. When we travel together in this small space that the van is, we get confronted with that. Then it’s good to have some time to do your own thing. We have these days or weeks when we have breaks from travelling and from being together all the time.
Alex: You also learn how the other person is and what provokes difficulties: You learn to make sure people have food, people have slept or whatever it is that triggers these issues. When to say stop, take a step back, or push. I remember before we even had the van. We had a car and we slept in a trailer behind it. We had been driving for a million hours and were in the middle of who knows what country. It was two in the morning. I was parking and I was not very good at backing up so we got stuck. That was horrible, but it was our own fault for driving so long and being so tired.
Aino: I think it’s good that we don’t live in the same place in Stockholm, though, that we both have our own space. I’ve also been staying at his place, or kept my things at his place. Now I have a place of my own, but I’ve had all sorts of living situations over these five-six years. I’ve moved like twenty times. I have stayed on everyone’s sofa. I was more of a home person back in Finland, but I don’t feel I ever had a home in Sweden. It’s always been for some weeks or months but it’s not my home. I guess I’ve got used to it. If I had a place that felt like home, I would put things up and make it my space. I think I have that kind of need somewhere, because I’m a very visual person and I like some things that I carry with me. But I’ve been too lazy to start that kind of project.
Alex: I’ve been the one who had a place. One reason I’ve stayed here in Stockholm for so long is I’ve been lucky with the apartment. I’ve been happy to be there. For me, it has always been very important to have a physical base. Aino: Because he’s a hoarder.
Alex: I have a lot of instruments, equipment: stuff. But finding the van changed the way I saw things. It’s such freedom to just drive, park wherever we want, sleep there, cook. That made me think that I don’t need much. And then I had to leave the previous apartment because the owner needed it. And I was, like: “Well, maybe I don’t want an apartment.” Now I’m staying at this apartment where I just moved in, and I can stay here for long, and it’s nice, but I’m not sure I will. I’ve always been good at making an effort: painting, fixing things, hanging all my instruments, whatever I need to feel that it’s my place and that I can do whatever I want. Now I don’t think I’m as interested in doing that. I’d rather make something in the van and go. The only thing is that it’s too cold to live in the van in the winter here.
Aino: I think you never wanted to stay in Stockholm, in a way. And I haven’t liked Stockholm either, so I’ve been trying to tell myself that I’m not going to stay here, that I’ll go somewhere else. That’s another reason why I haven’t made something here. But there are so many good things here. Everything works. There’s a good training space.
Alex: There’s a lot of funding.
Aino: All the structures are there and they work.
Alex: There’s good education. You can do a Master in circus. You can even do a PhD in circus. These are things that don’t exist in the rest of the world. But then, the more you travel, the more you want to spend time in these other places. It’s hard to decide where to live.
Aino: Where and why.
Alex: With the kind of work we have, the important thing is to travel to wherever the shows are. In a way, it doesn't matter from where you’re travelling. So you end up living where there are enough reasons to keep you. Maybe I have started to lose my reasons to stay in Stockholm. The biggest problem is that it’s an extremely boring city. You can find good people and contexts if you plan in advance, but I’ve tried a lot to find things spontaneously – social life, people talking, a little concert. I’ve been walking around alone in the cold and the dark. If I found something, it was closing and expensive. When I travel to all these other places where it’s different and then come back I’m like: “Why was I here again?”
Aino: I could imagine moving to central Europe or even Southern Europe. It would be nice to be in a Spanish-speaking place, because I’m slowly learning Spanish.
Alex: It’s ok being in the same place for a while as long as I know I’m going to leave. Even if that place would be a perfect place, I think I would still want to travel, but then go back to the perfect place in-between. I love to travel. Like the first trips we did with the van. We worked in Spain, then went to Berlin, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia and took the boat to Stockholm from there. It was great to have that freedom: seeing, exploring, stopping, taking pictures, whatever. Me and Aino are very different when we travel. I’m in contact with a lot of people online or on the phone every day and talk about what is happening. If I’m not there physically, I still feel very connected.
Aino: I don’t have a need to write every day. Also when he’s away, I’m not writing to him. My family and friends back home are more used to it now, but he gets angry. It might take days for me to answer messages. I always try to be better at that, but then I never manage. I don’t feel much need for messages unless something special has happened. Maybe I care less about daily things. It’s nicer for me to have that kind of conversation with the person directly, not via messenger. Also, I’m not good at writing. It takes forever and I get frustrated. It just doesn’t feel like the best way of communicating. If someone is having changes in life, I like to be in contact even if I’m not there. But it’s not the same as being there. I have missed so many things back in Finland while working far away: family gatherings, friends’ weddings, school class reunions, important concerts or shows. The most difficult thing to miss so far was when I was in a residency in Norway and learning that my grandfather had passed away. It was hard to be far from the family at that time. Apart from this thing of missing out, getting from point A to point B is the part of travelling that I like the least. Basically, if you could just skip the travelling part in the travelling, it would be perfect. Layovers are the worst, and sitting on your seat for hours isn’t so nice either. But I also kind of enjoy watching movies on long-distance flights and having nothing else to do.
Alex: If you do several long trips in a short period, you get used to it. But it also depends on how much stuff you’re travelling with. I think I never travelled with just a backpack in my whole life. Always a violin and a suitcase. If you’re going to fly, getting to and from the airport is always a pain in the ass because you have to carry all the suitcases and at the same time figure out where you’re going. It’s uncomfortable, it’s warm, it’s cold, it’s raining, it’s snowing. I prefer the van. If I could just always be transported from home in whatever vehicle I’d be travelling with, I’d be fine. I want my future travels to be smooth. Apart from that, I hope that we can keep this lifestyle until we feel we’ve had enough.
Aino: Maybe we will find our next base through the travel.
Alex: The van breaks down in the middle of the trip: Voilà, that’s our new base. Aino: Could happen.
Alex: Actually, I think our home, as well as our relationship, is wherever we are. I think it’s more about us, not our place.