Katja Mustonen is a dancer, teacher and a choreographer from Finland. Since the past 20

years the work with dance has made her travel around the globe. She graduated as a

dancer 2004, and holds MA degree in "Contemporary Dance Education” since 2010.

Currently, she works as a dancer in The Dance Theater Minimi.

In dance, she is interested in the holistic performer, where strong physicality is joined with

active imagination, energy work and embodied wisdom. Her special strength is in Contact

Improvisation, partnering and improvisation, but she works versatile within dance

depending of the context as a performer, maker and teacher.

Kaisa Kukkonen (1986) is an interdisciplinary artist-researcher based in Finland. She works with the poetry of movement, politics of touch, and somatic practices. Her background is in dance, words, and performance. Her interests are movement and voice improvisation, Contact Improvisation, work around consent, pleasure activism, boundaries and touch as well as work with words in the form of poetry or academic writing. Kaisa´s work changes shape and spirals between multiple forms: she makes performances; teaches workshops and classes in movement, touch and boundaries; organises festivals and events; writes and composes; improvises.
Kaisa has been dancing CI since 2005, and teaching since 2010 in Finland, Sweden, Germany, Austria and Iceland. Her CI home is Berlin, where she learned from Joerg Hassmann, Daniel Werner, Christine Mauch, and Gesine Daniels among others. Later her teachers and/or co-dancers have been for example Katja Mustonen, Anya Cloud, Iiris Raipala, Terhi Rasilo, and Nita Little. She currently dances and teaches in Helsinki.
Kaisa finished her studies at Iceland University of Arts in the MFA of Performing Arts programme (2021-2022) in September 2022 with a performance project “Take This Touch Inside Your Body”. She graduated from the MACoDE program at HfMDK in Frankfurt with a master thesis “Noticing Power Relations in Teaching Touch in Contact Improvisation” (2021). For the thesis she interviewed fourteen Contact Improvisation teachers, collected their strategies and thoughts on how to teach touch.
website: https://kaisakukkonen.wordpress.com/

I'm an interdisciplinary performing artist and teacher, originally from the USA, living in France since 2002. I have been making work collaboratively, teaching, and touring steadily in contemporary dance, music, performance and new circus since 1988.

Regarding my relationship to CI : I began learning CI in San Francisco in 1988, as a member of Sara Shelton-Mann’s performance group Contraband. It was a revelation! We were passionate about mixing CI with other forms, experimenting wildly, and using CI to respond to spiritual and political concerns.

I continue to see CI as a context for personal liberation, community health, a laboratory of hybrid play, a physical prayer, a contemporary expression of the ecstatic dance lineage, a radical practice of decentralized power, an apt metaphor for myriad forms of relationship and a hothouse of connection and empowerment.

I believe that my body is my tool for experiencing life. Therefore I believe that improving the body and the ability to sense the body experience is the most fascinating endless life journey. with directing the attention into the physical and metaphysical forces operates on the body, learning the anatomic structure of it, work with different images and textures, texts, memories, Imagination, smells and many stimuli that can be imagined, we are opening a door in ourselves to a wider being and wider body experience which are notaccessible in the reality.
Contact improvisation for me is the playground of all that, in which we can research the physical body and the physical forces applying on it in the best way, together with the freedom to open doors from different and various directions to the body experience.
I'm interested in how from the physical sphere something sensible metaphysical can be born, which cannot always be expressed in words. I believe that this is a political action to choose to do on this ground.

I've been dancing and researching contact in the last 8 years. In addition to being a professional dancer, I teach in various settings in Israel and around the world, courses and workshops in professional dance schools and for the general public.

Alon Ritter - is a movement-based embodiment researcher and educator, dedicated to exploring the profound connection between the body, mind, and movement. His primary teachings include Contact Improvisation, Tango, Somatic Dance, and the Feldenkrais Method. Alon’s approach to dance is deeply informed by somatics and trauma therapy, offering a practice that prioritizes sensitivity, presence, and human connection.

Drawing significant inspiration from the Axis Syllabus, Alon integrates anatomical and biomechanical understanding into his work, creating a foundation for safe, fluid, and efficient movement. His teaching is focused on the power of attunement and the transformative power of embodiment.

Ultimately, I’m inspired by the question of how to make something that seems so complex—so layered and nuanced—feel simple. 

And perhaps that’s the essence of dance.

To embrace the paradoxes, to find ease within effort,  relexation inside active responding, inspiration within boredom. 

Dance becomes a space where opposites meet, merge, and transform.

www.moave.si

I am fascinated by improvisation. It allows me to surrender completely to the moment and look forward to the next one with curiosity. Listening to myself, observing my breath, feeling my heartbeat, experiencing the subtle interplay of muscles, bones and connective tissue sparks a powerful feeling of vitality in me.

Ich gehe in mich hinein. Lausche, atme, zeig mich verletzlich, heile, komme mir näher und verwandel mich wieder. Alles beginnt von neuem. Immer wieder ein "Erstes Mal". Hier und Jetzt, im Augenblick. 

Ich bin Mama von einer 4-jährigen Tochter, unterrichte Yoga und versuche in diesen Stunden, Menschen an ihr höchstes Selbst zu erinnern. Passend zu diesem Thema erscheint bald meine erste Single "rise up & shine" unter meinem Künstlernamen "LOTUS" - ich freu mich so sehr auf diese Reise und all meine Wegbegleiter/innen. Schön, dass es dich gibt! Danke!

Ich sammel den Staub aus Schmetterlingsflügeln
Tanze mit der Stille
Lade das Magische ein

Ich liebe es Musik zu machen für einen tanzenden Raum, da kann ich fliegen….…Piano, Loop Maschine, Gesang, Percussions, Kalimba und andere Klänge…

I'm an interdisciplinary performing artist and teacher, originally from the USA, living in France since 2002. I have been making work collaboratively, teaching, and touring steadily in contemporary dance, music, performance and new circus since 1988.

Sakari Savola is a guitarist and dancer who is fascinated by improvisation. As a musician he is inspired by the contact of sounds and movement in space. Experimenting, inviting, listening. Lean to the ambience, find balances and fly with the shimmering sparkles.

He uses guitar and combines it with effects to create spiraling atmospheres. Sakari's musical style effortlessly traverses genres, from gentle melodies to chaotic rhythms, reflecting his versatile approach to music-making.

Lu Sarmiento is a multiple artist of music, dance and performance. She is a mother of two sons based in Bavaria, Germany close to Munich. 

Her first album “babashushu” was released in March 2024 

https://open.spotify.com/album/18gOjjPCM5CZe4ridoPL24?si=GQ8ENfWLTSS0EgBty-rlwQ

Her artistic expression is focused in the embodyment of the moment in all its diversity. Her music brims with tenderness and wildness and is infused with a power that shoots into infinity.

She is co-creating spaces of research in body and voice, playing and performing in different constellations and organising Festivals and Jams.