Choreographic Research Platform (CRP) @ Zodiak

Any modality of practice lingering around the topic of choreography is welcome to CRP: from the practice of studio-based physical activity to the practice of cerebral thought process, and all the enmeshed and mixed forms between these two poles. We invite you to wonder with us what choreography could become. Ultimately, the CRP is indebted to choreography as an ever expanding and changing notion which brings forth a multiplicity of curiosities and definitions of choreography.

Initially, CRP was an initiative from the MA Choreography program at Teak to host a series of get together of MA Choreography students, alumni and visiting teachers from the program between 2020-2021. Borrowing the idea of CRP, Zodiak signals a wish to offer structures to anybody invested in choreography to contribute to researching choreography. CRP @ Zodiak will be hosted by Zodiak´s artistic director Jenni-Elina Von Bagh and lecturer, choreographer Jana Unmüßig who deliberately have no curatorial line on CRP and don’t prescribe any definition of research. Rather they offer a space where each participant brings in their topic and understanding of what research could be.

CRP 2024 @ Zodiak consists of three meetings à 2 hours per period. Each meeting consists of 1-2 sharings, each à 45 minutes, plus conversation about the sharing. You may share but you may also witness actively and participate in the conversation only.

If more than 15 people get back to us, we follow a first comes, first served policy. Note that a minimum of 6 and maximum of 12 sharing proposals can be accepted. You can use the sharing for trying a physical task you are exploring, sharing a text you write on or are currently reading, an open question about choreography, a performance sketch: anything you carry a curiosity for and that makes you think with and about choreography. Paradoxes are welcome.

We invite you to send proposals for sharing (about 200-500 word) and sign up until August 31 to Zodiak´s audience engagement manager : elina.tervonen@zodiak.fi Please indicate if you wish to participate only as an active witness without having your own sharing moment.

You can access the Zodiak Code of Ethics here:  Zodiak - eettinen ohjeistus

Jana Unmüßig works as a lecturer in Choreography in the MA Choreography at the Theater Academy Helsinki and navigates as a researcher in the field of artistic research. Prior to that she did theater studies at the Sorbonne, Paris, trained dancing and choreographing at SEAD (Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance), specialized in choreography through a MA in choreography at the Inter-University Center for Dance (HZT) Berlin, and received a Doctor of Arts from the Theater Academy Helsinki.

Her choreographic works have been shown internationally until she got tired of producing and shifted values and focus points in regards to life and work. Now, she enjoys facilitating time for other artists to find out about their artistic interests and desires. Her latest publication (2024) deals with how to teach choreography, published in the Nordic Journal for Dance.

Jenni-Elina von Bagh is is the Artistic Director of Zodiak - Center for New Dance. She is also a choreographer and performer. In her choreographic works she resonates with timely philosophical themes and concepts, vibrations and attuning of the world through translating them into context of art and performance. She plays with falling between categories, organic and non-organic life, admitting and losing control. She often works with body, text and voice as a part of compositional play. Von Bagh graduated from the Ma programme in Choreography in 2018 at Theatre Academy Helsinki.

Von Bagh ́s latest works as a choreographer are "As time goes by" (Side Step - festival, Zodiak - Center for New Dance, February, 2023) "Void - A Psychodrama" (Cultural Centre Caisa, 2021), "A Prologue" (Zodiak -Centre for New Dance 2020), "Living Documents" (together with Charlotta Ruth and Dominic Gruhnbuhel, MDT Stockholm, Dance Scene Copenhagen, Image Tanz Vienna 2019-2020)" Posthuman days" (Zodiak -Centre for New Dance 2018) and " a life -nomadic melodrama" (Kallio-stage, Helsinki, 2017). Prior to her graduation as a choreographer she has also a broad experience as a dancer and performer.