These are the planned activities for SOS 2016. However, there might still pop-up some classes or other activities, that will be listed in this page once confirmed.

Intense

Classes/laboratories

Other activies

Intensive: Through anatomic exploration towards playful improvisation(, )

In this intensive we search for inspiration from the micro and macro cosmoses of the human body. We look at some specific structures, like the skeleton, the skin and the fascias, and explore them through dancing and improvising.  We wish to deepen our understanding of contact by understanding better how our own bodies and the bodies of other people work. We also use this exploration to inspire our playful improvisation.

Intensive: Back to the roots of CI (, )

We will examine some fundamental physical elements of dance, and some points will be concentrated in great detail. Biomechanic and kinestetic theories will give framework to perceive dance and there will be a specific points of view from physics in every session. Working together we investigate how the frameworks affect, create, and nourish our dance. We also pay attention to the analysis part: what is happening, what we do, what are your manners, and how we react. Come as you are. Dance like a Newton.

Our working methods consist laboratories, exercises, group observations, lectures, demos and a bit of poor finnish humour.

Friendly for all.

Intensive:  Flow Is Sport, Fragmentation Is Art (, )

The base for our dances is the physical understanding of flow. Considering flow as a mobile, structured mass moving through space – usually spherical pathways – with ease and softness. Practicing flow through listening shifts of weight, escpecially in slowmotion, builds up the common vocabulary for our dances. We’ve come to realize, that sometimes staying within flow diminishes our capability of improvisation.

This has drawn our curiosity towards how do we make choices as a solo while continuing to attend the dance with other(s), and has brought us to question our habitual patterns of movements. Fragmentation as the loss of learnt responses, reflexes, refusal of offered invitations, gaps, and any attemp towards the braking of the flow.

The workshop will oscilate in the space of learning and questioning the learnt. Flow provides us the physical skills, fracmentation gives access to uncommon choices, and by combining both we compose our dances. This workshop concentrates on the latter (fragmentation), assuming that the partisipants are already familiar with the sensation of flow in their dancing.

Class: Back space ()

This class is about opening the back space, going backwards and up side down. Are you afraid? Come 😉� We start safely from floor and bring this quality up and to our dance.

Class: Alignment is everywhere ()

In Contact Improvisation we learn optimal alignment to stay mobile while supporting weight. This workshop asks how to align our bodies in ways that we can be supported by the space. Alignment is 3-dimensional, it is linear or spiral, but it is not flat. Alignment is an action. It is a way to relate through distance, whether that distance is in between parts of my body or through open space. Alignment is everywhere – and the more we play with it the more choices we have on how to align and what to align with.

Experience level: You will get more out of this class if you already have some experience with Contact Improvisation.

Class: Trio sharing score ()

This simple score by Nancy Stark Smith offers a possibility to have a focused dance with an other person, to be seen and to witness others dancing. According Nancy, we do three things when we are witnessing: we study, we support and we enjoy.

Class: Uncontrolled Flight Patterns ()

We will look back to the early days of Contact Improvisation and experiment with material that was part of Magnesium, the performance piece pre-dating CI that Steve Paxton directed at Oberlin in 1971. Launch and land like the 70’ies never ended!

Score laboratory ()

In the laboratory we explore the unique quality of CI as a practice and as a form of performance. We will work with witnessing, exploring our own dance vocabulary in solo, duet and group improvisation. How an improvisation score can serve as a ritual and a shared collective experience, where the roles of a mover and the witness can be renegotiated and mixed? We will start with guided sessions and exploring improvisation scores and noticing what sort of dances, situations and presence different scores evoke. We may become aware of choices and possibilities we engage with in improvisation and different ways we may engage in the dance for example trough exploring our perceptual awareness. Then we proceed into more independent exploration in small groups.

Class: Follow your heart ()

How does your heart want to move and navigate in the space? Does it have the courage to do it? How does it connect with other people? In this workshop we will explore the connection with our heart and the urge to follow bravely our deepest call. We will first tune into the heart with some inspiration from Body Mind Centering and other methods, and find our own dance. We will then continue to contact others with the intention of staying true to ourselves and being brave in our actions, however big or small, and explore the connections from the place of deep listening.

Playground lab: possible worlds ()

It is often inspiring to see the diverse range of interaction, like miniature worlds, that exists in the jam space at one time. This lab will be a synthesization and crystallization of this phenomena. Within one space, we will have many different worlds that one may enter and exit at will. The worlds have clearly defined rules that allow different degrees of freedom concerning interactional possibilities. The worlds will be framed by marked areas on the floor and the invisible walls that erect as the spaces become qualitatively differentiated from each other through the different scores at work. Welcome to immerse and loose yourself in this amusement park of myriad possibilities!

Class: Taste of dialogue ()

Moving bodies talking and receiving information. The mind is awake, scanning, travelling in the body. We let the information to come in and transform into dance and movement. You may sense the flow of information between the dancers; it flows simultaneously in both directions. We are giving and receiving information at the same time. It is real time communication, honoring the present moment. There are elements of physical sensation, improvisation and behavioral patterns which are products of our life experience.

We will explore contact improvisation in relation to dialogue as a stream of meaning flowing among, through and between us. Landing in the present moment, listening and living in the questions are possible places to begin.

This class is beginners friendly and may give a taste of dialogue also for contact impro veterans.

Class: Yogabodyworkbreathingcontact ()

We’ll combine some easy-going body work with a hint of anatomical preciseness, some yoga poses, breathing, and of course contact improvisation, together into a lovely hodgepodge of joyful movement.

Class: Spatial support ()

We get support from orientation to space as well as to the earth. Spatial support brings lightness and expansiveness to dancing CI. It’s the key to all the flying skills and a sense of independence in dancing with another. So a nice long personal exploration that starts slow and low with the support of the earth and opens up to spatial support. Followed by lots of dancing.

Class: Contemplative Contact Improvisation ()

Focusing in deep listening skills of checking the quality of your existence in dance. Also checking the direction of dance, and learning to make fullfilling corrections.

Other activities: Arriving (, )

Open and facilitated space to help you to arrive to the festival, to stretch your body after travelling, to soften to prepare yourself for dancing. You are welcome to join whenever you arrive.

Other activities: Writings ()

Writings is a moment for you, to write down a few thoughts around the festival, around dancing, around contact improvisation, around wishes and fears. Come with a pen and paper, let your hand move and let the words float, maybe you will find something. Keep it to yourself or share with others. I will provide some themes or questions and keep time.

Other activities: Conscious Breathing ()

On a few days, soon after lunch, take half an hour just for yourself. Pick a mattress to lie down, put a blanket over yourself and relax. Jarno will lead you through the session, inviting you deeper into relaxation and finding your own soft, but yet full and conscious breath. There’s no pushing or accomplishing, no technique or goal. Just being and breathing, simple and safe. Yet, it can be a most profound and nourishing experience!

Other activities: Morning pilates ()

On some mornings, before the breakfast we will recover and vitalize our bodies and minds with Pilates exercise that will give you a nice integrated feeling for the whole day. All aboard!

Other activities: Flash Mob Laboratory ()

The idea in this laboratory is to put together our genious minds, bodies and ideas and build up a Flash Mob master plan to be carried out the in some public space after the festival.

Other activities: Centering in heart ()

Sitting half an hour. Focusing in heart and in present moment. Choosing to bring attention back to heart repeatedly.

Other activities: Sharing circle ()

We will sit down and form a circle. We will embrace a present moment. We will arrive into our hearts.

We will listen what is meaningful to share with others. We will share, verbally and nonverbally. We will finish after hour and half.

Teachers

Anna

Let's Jussi

Anna is an independent dance and performance artist specialising in contact improvisation, somatic techniques and community dance. She is a member of the performance art company Reality Research Center in Finland and her work has largely focused on improvisation and bodily interaction with the audience. Her interest in different ways of interacting and creating realities has resulted in her working in many community settings including most recently in Nicaragua. She holds MA’s both in Community Dance and in Cultural Research and currently works at the Arts Promotion Centre (Arts Council) Finland.

Annukka

Annukka Toivonen

Annukka has practiced CI actively for 13 years and the form is one of the greatest passions of her life. Alive connection to oneself and others is an essential source of joy in her dance. Workwise she is a multifielded teacher specialized in dramapedagogies, non-violent communication, peace education and contact improvisation. Her previous studies also include psychotherapy and natural therapies. She graduated as a community pedagogy in 2009 and is currently working as a trainer and project coordinator at the Peace Union of Finland.

Iris

Iiris Rapla

I am dance artist; performer and teacher living in Helsinki, Finland. I graduated in 2004 as Master of Arts in dance from the Theatre Academy of Finland. I also studied dance in School for New Dance Developement (S.N.D.O.) in Amsterdam and in many workshops around the world. I’ve been working closely with improvisation and contact improvisation in several performing groups. I am one of the organizers of Goa contact festival and Skiing on Skin -festival in Finland. I graduated recently as certified iyengar yoga teacher. The combination of exact alignment of yoga and free flowing movement of contact improvisation brings balance for my practice as well teaching. At the moment I am in the middle of my studies as therapist and holistic counselor, which has affected my approach to teaching dance into more accepting and encouraging people for their own expression and truth, as well as exploring how dance can truly empower and transform our state.

Ilona

Ilona KENOVA

I´m mama of happy family. Dance is love, nourishment, hobby and work of my life. I feel big gratitude for it.

Jarno

Mr Mäkelä

I’m a yoga teacher and a student of osteopathy. I like leading conscious breathing sessions, and my interest in moving is often influenced by yoga asanas, breathing work, and an ever-growing awareness of the human anatomy and physiology. How to maintain structure and strength while being soft, flowing and breathing at the same time? How to find effortlessness in effort? How to stay conscious of the whole body, its movement and the partner’s movement, as well as the surroundings, while dancing? Is it possible to receive and give healing through contact? It’s a meditative, juicy and rich journey.

I’ve been teaching yoga for some ten years and dancing contact impro for some eleven years. My yoga style is the alignment-based Iyengar yoga (now Junior II level). Since fall 2014 I’ve been studying osteopathy full time in the Metropolia University of Applied Sciences in Helsinki. Originally I’ve graduated (believe it or not) as a BSc in Business Studies from London.

Katja

Katja Mustonen

is a Finnish dancer, teacher and dance maker, who currently works and lives as a nomad. She graduated from the Vocational Dance School in Outukumpu, Finland 2004 as dancer, and holds a MA degree in “Contemporary Dance Pedagogy” from the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Frankfurt, Germany.

Since 2008, she’s been teaching Contemporary Dance Technique, Improvisation and Contact Improvisation internationally. She is curious about the states of presence and the body’s ability to transform, embody, and transmit images, knowledge, emotions and atmospheres. Recently she’s been interested in jointing photography, video and text among other interdisciplinary approaches into her work.

Lauri

Lauri Jäntti

Lauri is anthropologist / social scientist whose ever lasting source of enthusiasm is to explore the human interaction and meaning making mechanisms within various cultural /social settings ? i.e. how and under whose terms and conditions are the social realities around us being build. The field of CI is one subreality among others that Lauri enjoys to search.

Linda

Linda Priha

My body is a stage. I am a witness. My mind is listening and my soul is the source. My life is a miracle.

Linda () is a freelance dancer, performer, dance teacher, choreograph. Besides creating her own work she’s been working with choreographers like Soile Lahdenperä, Jouni Järvenpää, Mirva Mäkinen, Tomi Paasonen, Jyrki Karttunen, Pipaluk Supernova (Denmark) and William Petit (France). At the moment Linda is studying osteopathy and is deeply inspired by the huge universe of the body.

Malcolm

I think of myself as a somatic movement researcher, educator, mentor and artist. In my classes, I share my inquiry of what it is to be a thinking, feeling, moving subject in this world through developing a dialogue with ourselves and our environment in which we are empowered to be our own experts.

I offer my work as a resource for performing arts professionals in dance centres, for dance companies, at festivals, and on higher education programmes. I also teach a workshop series for every body called BodySchool in which I apply my work to everyday life situations.

I am certified to teach the Feldenkrais Method® and the Body And Earth work developed by Andrea Olsen and Caryn McHose. I studied for two years at SNDO Amsterdam and have an MA in Dance Pedagogy. I have also made extensive studies of Contact Improvisation, Authentic Movement, Movement Shiatsu, Body Mind Centering and experiential anatomy.

Mirva

Mirva Mäkinen

Mirva Mäkinen graduated (MA) from the Dance Department from the University of Arts, Finland in 2000, before that she did masters of Physical Education from University of Jyväskylä. 2010 she start to do doctoral studies in University of Arts in Helsinki, her research is about Somaesthetics of Contact Improvisation. From 2000 onwards she has been a dance teacher, choreographer and lecturer for dance at the Kallio Upper Secondary School of Performing Arts. She has been teaching in several international dance and contact improvisation festivals. Mirva has been working with with many different dance companies and choreographers, here few of them: Dance company Karttunen Kollektiv (choreographer Jyrki Karttunen), New Circus Company Circo Aereo, choreographer Joona Halonen, Echo Echo dance company (Ireland), collaboration with Frey Faust and collaboration with Joerg Hassmann. At the moment she is working with Finnish choreographer Valtteri Raekallio. In dance I am interested in the feeling offlow and soft movement. I love to investigate movement, its rhythm and different ways of inhabiting the body. A feeling of dancing is created by being able to switch the body from total relaxation to extreme intensity and tension. I call this the body?s ability to breathe and create movement.

Otto

Otto Akkanen

I a wave Form passing materia Materia passing form Not a half Not yet whole Waiting a shore to crash on

Mr.

Mr Erasto

Panu is a dedicated mover living in Helsinki. He is currently influenced by capoeira and other soft martial arts. He is also interested in the physical side of a human body; in particular, pilates type of stuff that he is also teaching. Panu likes also aerial acrobatics, sleeping, gardening, and chocolate.

Petri

Petri Taipale

Petri loves to dance contact improvisation and loves to teach it also. He likes rolling, falling and weight sharing. He loves the flow of movement , but also likes to be still and just listen. Petri likes to participate to co-creation of present moment. He just loves to be in contact with him self, and sometimes with others too.

History: Petri has practised CI for 11 years. Some years he has practised super intensively with strong and burning passion. Some years he has just found himself from parking several floors without any good inspiration to move. Nowadays he just simply loves to move his beautiful long bodyparts all over the spaces and share his locomotion.

Ronja

Ronja View

Ronja Ver is a dancer and dance maker, a teacher, a mother, an activist, and a lifetime student of performance as meaning-making. Her choreographic work addresses current issues through movement and sound, technical but unpolished, often working with extreme physical states to invite her audience into a sensory, nonverbal place of relating. She has worked in Europe and in the United States, most recently with Nancy Stark Smith and Mike Vargas in New York City and San Francisco, Sara Shelton Mann, Risa Jaroslow and Scott Wells in the SF Bay Area. Contact Improvisation continues to be a source of magic and inspiration in her life, and she is proud to be featured on Steve Paxton?s dvd Material for the Spine. She holds an MFA in Dance from Hollins University/ADF.

Samuli

Samuli Lehesaari

I found my way to the sphere of CI in early 2000 when the Helsinki community was just kicking off. It was love at first touch. Due to my background in pedagogy and psychology, for a long time i approached CI as a means to address some of the questions concerning human well-being and liberation. In the last years, through contemporary dance studies in Germany, the artistic dimension has crept into the picture. But above all, CI remains for me an exceptionally creative and nourishing form for human communication.

Terhi

Terhi Rasilo I have danced a lot in my life. My background is in contemporary dance and my CI experience is about as old as this SOS festival. During the last years my regular jamming has happened in Montreal, but now I am back in Finland and wondering what is my place here. I have a curious scientist?s mind and a PhD in ecology. I like to ask questions and look at things from different perspectives. I enjoy dances that move in the space, I like to know opposite edges of different scales, I am interested in combining art and science. I like being by myself and with people, swimming in lakes and calm mornings.

I like dancing and exploring movement. My dancing spirit is coming from gratitude of life and being. Imagination in wide sense helps me to integrate body with life. Mystery in movement goes beyond rational mind but helps to be here and now. As a participant in this cosmic joke, I would like to reduce stress and create happiness. Dancing is my way. Bullshit is my day. Papu is my son.