The Greatest Performance of My Life is a durational, alternative cabaret show where performers improvise solos to songs of their own choosing. Unrehearsed and unpredictable, the show shifts between joy, sorrow, fantasy and confession. At its core lies a single show number: a motif that Sara Melleri has developed and transformed as a creative tool throughout the past decade of her performance practice.
Led and hosted by Melleri herself, the work assembles a remarkable constellation of contemporary performers. Hailing from a diverse set of professional backgrounds and practices, the performing artists come together to play around for their own pleasure and enjoyment, offering love and support to one another and to their own expression. Every moment remains charged with the risk, and the potential, of the unknown. Every moment is a gift to the audience.
Audience members are welcome to move between the performance space and foyer, choose their own way of witnessing the unfolding evening, and leave the venue when the time feels right. The event is 18+.
We perform for the audience and for each other. Sometimes we might speak into the microphone. We always do something that interests us personally. There might be confessional “shower monologues” in the performance. The stage is a graveyard. The show is the self, a fantasy of the self, and the show is our life. Joys and sorrows. People come and go. Performers come and go. We perform the kind of solos we would want to do — and the kind of solos we would like to see. The audience is free to have a drink and move between the performance space and foyer at their own pace. Someone dances, someone sings, someone speaks. This is sexy to me. I speak to myself kindly. I calm myself. I touch myself. The performer opens their imagination to the audience. Welcome to The Greatest Performance of My Life.
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Working group
Amanda, Antonia Atarah, Iida Hägglund, Julia Jäntti, Ken Mai, Sara Melleri, Alen Nsambu, Tourer Sportsvagina, Lydia Ofi Teresia
Show concept, convener, and host
Sara Melleri
Performers
Amanda, Antonia Atarah, Ken Mai, Alen Nsambu, Tourer Sportsvagina, Lydia Ofi Teresia
Sound designer
Iida Hägglund & performers
Lighting designer
Julia Jäntti
With support from
Arts Promotion Center Finland, Otto A.Malm Foundation, Finnish Cultural Foundation
Sara Melleri is an actress, director, and an alternative cabaret maker. She is the initiator of Greatest Performance of My Life, a performance event rooted in the show number practice that she has explored throughout her life.
Melleri has performed and directed widely in theatre and film, both as a solo artist and in collectives such as Hype and Delta Venus. Her recent works have been presented for example at Q-Teatteri, The Finnish National Theatre, Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, and Espoo Theatre.
Amanda is a dancer and a performance artist, whose language of movement is based on the elements of vogue femme. She is working actively in the Finnish Vogue/Ballroom scene and is part of two performing arts groups: Amanda & Lydia queer art duo and Fem Queens of Finland. In addition to performing, she teaches her own Bedroom Style technique.
Antonia Atarah is a Ghanaian-Finnish actor with a Master’s degree from the Helsinki Theatre Academy’s acting program, along with additional studies in musical theatre, drama pedagogy and practical training in Accra, Ghana. In addition to her debut leading role in Ronja, the Robbers daughter at Svenska Teatern, Atarah has worked across diverse performing art forms, methods, and collectives in Finland, Germany, Ghana, and Tanzania.
She has explored decolonial and feminist performance approaches in pieces such as Armageddon (Sara Melleri, Sonya Lindfors, Elina Pirinen) and ONE DROP (Sonya Lindfors).
Iida Hägglund is a sound designer, artist, composer, writer, musician, and performer. She works as a freelancer in the fields of performing and time-based arts. Hägglund is interested in addressing feminist themes in her work through feminist practices.
Julia Jäntti is a visual designer and artist based in Helsinki. She has worked as a lighting, set, and costume designer for Kom Theatre, Helsinki City Theatre, the Finnish National Theatre, Oulu City Theatre, Lappeenranta City Theatre, Vaba Lava Theatre in Tallinn, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma.
Ken Mai is a Japanese Butoh artist, choreographer, teacher, and yogi based in Helsinki. He studied Butoh by its founder Kazuo Ohno in the 90’s, and integrated his career into a variety of performing arts styles such as martial arts, German expressionist modern dance, ballet, acting, rock drumming, opera singing, free-gender expression, and spirituality according to zen and yoga philosophies. He has performed solo, taught, and collaborated with artists all over the planet.
Alen Nsambu is a Finnish-Angolan choreographer and performer. They were selected as a GENERATION2023 artist for the Amos Rex group exhibition as part of the Nsambu&Pieski collective.
His debut work NEON BEIGE was chosen as part of the international Aerowaves network, and he was named one of the network’s Twenty25 artists. In the summer of 2024, Nsambu was an artist-in-residence at The Watermill Center in New York, under the artistic direction of Robert Wilson.
Tourer Sportsvagina is most likely Finland’s first wheelchair-using drag artist. Tourer began by rolling on the floors of the underground scene, but later became known as the host of Abysmall-night and through their work with the House of Auer and Lavaklubi. Sportsvagina’s performances combine social critique with bold physical comedy, a hallmark of their unique artistic style. They are rarely seen on stage, so every performance marks a special occasion.
Lydia Ofi Teresia is a queer performance artist known for lipsync artistry and sensual dance performances. As one of the pioneers of the Finnish Ballroom scene, she has built a career that spans both contemporary dance productions and large-scale commercial projects, working as a dancer, model, and performer. She is one half of the Amanda & Lydia queer art duo.
