Intercultural Weekend of Contemporary Dance

Saturday 12.3. at 10-17
Sunday 13.3. at 10-17
Place: Zodiak Studio C4
Language: English
Fee: one workshop 5 € / one day 10 € / the whole weekend 20 €
THERE ARE STILL PLACES AVAILABLE ON THE COURSE. You can sign up by sending an email to inari.pesonen@zodiak.fi.

Europe and Finland are undergoing a change. Finland is becoming an increasingly international and multicultural country. New artists and dancers looking for collaboration, partners and networks come in all the time. This creates new opportunities for art. Let's get to know each other!

Zodiak – Center for New Dance and International Cultural Centre Caisa host a multi-cultural networking weekend for contemporary dance professionals on 12–13 March. In contemporary dance workshops arranged during the weekend, professional artists from different cultural backgrounds introduce and share their working methods with colleagues and get to know each other. The Intercultural Weekend offers a possibility for artistic development, new influences and new contacts.

The weekend consists of six contemporary dance workshops. Three workshops take place between 10 am and 5 pm on both days. The weekend also features a free-of-charge get-together with food and drinks in the Living Room of Caisa on Saturday evening (7 pm - 10 pm).

The workshops are aimed at dance professionals and students. You can sign up for one individual workshop, for the whole day or the whole weekend.

Workshops:
Saturday 12 March
At 10-12 Suvi Tuominen: Explore the dance of fertility
At 12.30-14.30 Sally Davison: Body Belonging
At 15-17 Beniamino Borghi: Exposing Movements

Sunday 13 March
At 10-12 Sibiri ”Bebe” Konate: Contemporary Africa
At 12.30-14.30 Janina Rajakangas: Sensing and seeing
At 15-17 Tanja Råman & John Collingswood: DigiDance

More information about the workshops can be found below.

Saturday 12 March

At 10-12 Suvi Tuominen: Explore the dance of fertility

During this workshop we focus on the main features of traditional dances for women in the North-African and Middle-Eastern region. We will use structured improvisation and different scores as tools in order to have an authentic feeling of the relationship between music and movement in these cultures. We will also approach the concept of aesthetic and social form in these dance cultures. At the end participants have the possibility to explore free improvisation within this cultural context. Please take a scarf with you. 

At 12.30-14.30 Sally Davison: Body Belonging

The aim of the workshop is to introduce a working practice into environmental dance, of finding and developing ground and the expression that arises from this relationship. We start in the studio to arrive and prepare for the outside practice. The invitation is to settle our awareness on the sensations of breath and weight, to arrive where we are. Developing the connection to air and earth we find our support through the structure of the body into moving. Through listening to our own rhythm and body language we deepen our relationship to ourselves. We then move to an outside practice working with the responsive inter-relationship between body, earth, self, environment and moment. Through an improvisation score relevant to the environment participants will move for 45 minutes. 

At 15-17 Beniamino Borghi: Exposing Movements

The purpose of the workshop is to lead the dancer to find expressive movements that can be "captured" by the viewer: through a warm-up, improvisation tasks and working with a partner, the dancers will experience the perception of a visible body and multi-sensoriality. How do we observe and how can we be observed? 

Sunday 13.3.

At 10-12 Sibiri ”Bebe” Konate: Contemporary Africa

This workshop offers a wider perspective on contemporary African dance. Contemporary dance in Africa, today, utilises traditional dance as something to learn from and develop it into a more contemporary form in all its complexity and richness. The workshop will start with getting to know each other and warm-up. Participants will get to know some West African movements and styles. After this, smaller group work will enable participants to add their own style and touch to the choreography. African dance uses different and multiple tempos and moves close to the floor and this will open the dancer’s opportunities to use his/her own movements and get inspired by something different! NB. This workshop will be held in Finnish.

At 12.30-14.30 Janina Rajakangas: Sensing and seeing

The workshop will start with a shaking, bouncing and running warm-up which gradually mobilises every bit of the body making it accessible and versatile. Then I will introduce touch as a way to instigate improvisation tasks in order to expand the possibilities of how we dance. I am interested in the dancer’s journey into finding new possibilities of dancing. In my practice, dancer’s intelligence functions as a key in the treatment of the subjects at hand. I believe that at a professional level all the information needed lies within the performer. Therefore we will be working with the relation of IN the body to OUT of the body, through sensing into dancing, while practicing on being seen and seeing.

At 15-17 Tanja Råman & John Collingswood: DigiDance

This creative workshop by TaikaBox introduces the participants to the software package Isadora, which enables the creation of interactive stage environments. The aim of the workshop is to explore the concept of interactivity through a series of choreographic tasks. Isadora was created in 2002 by dancer and sound artist Mark Coniglio, and has become a powerful tool for choreographers, designers, VJs and digital artists worldwide. John Collingswood and Tanja Råman have been working with Isadora for the last eight years and have developed a deep understanding of the connections between technology and the dancing body. Previous experience is not needed. 

For more information: Inari Pesonen, inari.pesonen@zodiak.fi, 050 412 7116