Zodiak Laboratory is Zodiak's residency concept. In October 2025, the ZodLab residency artist is dancer, artist Jussi Ulkuniemi, together with their working group.
At the Zodiak Laboratory residency, we begin the first phase of my debut solo work Glimmering (working title), in collaboration with dramaturg Pie Kär and sound designer Satu Kankkonen.
Glimmering is a sensual exploration of the queer, gender-fluid male body. It navigates through feeling, negotiation, orientation and disorientation in search of an intimate, personal femme energy. The work challenges expected behaviours of the male body and disrupts bodily categories and representations, transforming the performance space through the shifting movements of gender and my personal biography. Glimmering is an energetic play of seduction, attraction, gaze, physical humour and charisma.
Together with dramaturg Pie Kär, we develop new movement practices that help shape the performance. We focus on orientation and disorientation as choreographic tools. As I begin to orient myself towards my femme side, different postures, sensations, intimacies, desires and memories begin to resonate through my body. These draw me towards a more fluid sense of physicality and presence, gently dismantling my masculinity.
We also explore social choreographies that lead towards audience engagement, consent as an embodied practice, masculine bodily gestures, and submission as a performative tool.
Sound designer Satu Kankkonen will also begin their work during the residency. We work together through durational improvisations, experimenting with how sound and movement interact. Satu’s spacious, gritty soundscapes aim to sustain prolonged emotional and sensory states, creating an energetic foundation for my dancing.
Glimmering seeks to dismantle femmephobia projected onto male bodies – a force that prevents men from softening, being supported and becoming vulnerable. It also traces my personal process of unravelling internalised femmephobia and the glorification of hypermasculinity within gay culture. Through this, I search for imaginative, bodily in-between states where my inner experience can come alive.
Glimmering focuses on deconstructing masculinity and playing with liminality, physical language, intimacy and vulnerability – and, in contrast, moments of power and tension.