Matilda Aaltonen leads a course focusing on our senses, particularly sight, touch, hearing, and kinaesthetic senses. Throughout the course, we heighten our awareness of these senses and their observations, allowing them to shape our movements.
During the classes that emphasise touch, we explore how movement feels by letting it guide our dance. We immerse ourselves in our sensing bodies and break down barriers between us and other living entities. Our exploration of sight involves examining it as an observational tool that inspires movement. Moreover, we gently explore the social aspect of looking and seeing, pondering whether gaze can be a shared experience. In our study of hearing, we experiment with close listening, music, and different sounds, observing how they affect movement.
Can we momentarily let go of our pre-planning mind and fully engage in movement, sensation, and presence? Can we soften our bodies and sharpen our perception? Throughout the course, we listen attentively to our bodies, moving from each participant’s starting point. The exercises include touch and observing the dance of other participants. The course’s physical exercises usually begin calmly, allowing participants to determinate the direction.
Matilda Aaltonen, based in Helsinki, works as a performer and choreographer, collaborating with various working groups in the fields of dance and performing arts. Her current artistic focus revolves around redefining physicality, the concept of animals, and interspecies relationships, and exploring cross-species collaboration. In 2020, Aaltonen graduated with a master’s degree in dance from the Theatre Academy of Uniarts Helsinki. In 2022, she completed Uniarts Helsinki's non-degree pedagogical studies for teachers in the arts. Aaltonen’s works have also featured at Zodiak: she worked as a choreographer and performed in Voyeur (2020) and as a dancer in Nature Untitled | Movements I - III (2022).
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Indulge the Movement – Contemporary dance for all courses are mainly instructed by the choreographers and performers of Zodiak’s previous, current and upcoming season’s programme of performances. Indulge the Movement courses are suitable for everyone, and you can participate even without previous dance experience. Indulge the Movement – Contemporary dance for all courses focus on motion and movement, but they also offer an opportunity to explore different dance practices with alternating instructors.
The language of this course is Finnish and / or English, according to the needs of the participants.
