Description
Somatic Choreography
In this workshop led by Kati Raatikainen, participants will explore embodied exercises that awaken the digestive tract’s “soft support structure” as a movement-based starting point. From tuning the body, we will move toward choreographic processes grounded in somatic approaches. We will experiment with how the body’s lived experience and the development of choreography’s fundamental elements might support one another through the choreographic gaze.
Kati Raatikainen is a choreographer working in Helsinki and Kokkola.
“At the core of my artistic practice is an intersectional approach to the body, experience, animality, disability, ecology, the politics of the body, and participation. Through embodied agency, I seek to rethink how we—as humans and as a more-than-human community—might coexist in more equal and sustainable ways,” Raatikainen explains.
Key works from Raatikainen’s extensive career include Ilmapiiri (Helsinki Biennial 2025), Poissaolo (Humina Association 2024), Principia (Kaaos Company, Mad House 2024, Cirko 2022), Kohtaamisia 2023 and Kvartetto 2019 (Tanssivat Timantit, multiple venues 2019–2024), Acts of Care (Circus Maximus, multiple venues 2017–2019), Tanssia sosiaalisella etäisyydellä 2020–21, Cheap 2018 and Yhteis(ty)ö 2016 (Zodiak – Center for New Dance), Ei-inhimillinen saareke (Reality Research Center 2017–2018), the performance series Selfies (multiple venues 2014–2016), bodies/objects (2015), and Titled (MA thesis in choreography, Theatre Academy 2014).
Raatikainen has taught dance and performance, served on the artistic leadership team of the Talvitanssit Winter Dance Festival in Kokkola (2011–2022), studied and taught yoga and somatics, worked as the lead teacher for the dance program at Kälviä Folk High School and in somatic yoga teacher training, and collaborated as a community artist in Zodiak’s suburban project Valokeilassa Koillinen (2019–2021). She currently serves as chair of the Helsinki-based arts association Humina, works within the Humina-tila collective, and leads the professional activities of Tanssivat Timantit, a dance group in Kokkola for dancers with intellectual disabilities.
Register for the workshop to the centre producer reija.penttinen@pohjanmaantanssi.fi.
