“The performance is so powerful that it is easy to feel defeated by a higher power after watching it. The sound design has a lot to do with creating such an elevated atmosphere. The feeling that the well thought-out artistic whole evokes is cathartic.”
“The performance raises existential questions. The mundane meets what is not of this world. The dancer is both human and animal, but also a kind of medium that puts the audience almost in a trance. Again, it is thanks to the skillful sound design that the enchantment is created.”
-Topi Lappalainen, Veni (2025) review, Arbetarbladet
“In the final scene – that in its ecstatic elevation sounds and looks like what I imagine a Ruusut-concert to look and sound like – the self of the narrator spreads across time and space in a way that bursts through the tyranny of the body. The narrator's consciousness expands from a point to a line that punctures the past, the present and the future.”
– Matti Tuomela, Veljelleni (2024) review, Helsingin Sanomat
“For the whole of the performance the sound design carries a distinctive cacophony and disturbance, as well as news, motorcycles and rumble. A great sound design”
– Hanna Helavuori on Copy Pasta Cut (2023)
“Vili Pääkkö’s sound design has an interesting copy and paste -kind of style that defies definitions.”
– Eeli Vilhunen on Topdog/Underdog, Demokraatti
The sound design by Vili Pääkkö takes advantage of multiple pop songs, for example Madonna have been sampled to the mix well. The sounds of Pääkkö and the light design of Jaakko Sirainen are a crucial part of the narrative means of the performance, where Niemi juggles between characters.
– Eeli Vilhunen, Straight Acting (2023) arvostelu, Demokraatti
Vili holds a bachelors and a masters degree in sound design from the Theatre Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki andi has worked mainly in Helsinki with such institutions as YLE (Finnish Broadcasting Company), Finnish National Theatre, Viirus Theatre with sound designs also audible in London Contemporary Dance School, Tictac Arts Centre Brussels and HZT Berlin
Vili makes sounds that work as premonitions. To Vili being uncertain but still audible is honest and fragile in a way that can reach beyond the everyday.