The Netherlands
11-16 July 2023
4th Contact Improvisation Festival
Otto Akkanen
Treeroots and whirlpools
Otto is a dance artist, photographer, bodywork practitioner, and teacher.
He was introduced to contact improvisation and contemporary dance in his twenties, becoming so involved that he went to study dance for three years, graduating from the vocational school of Outokumpu, Finland.
He works as an artist performing solo works, and with different improvisation groups, choreographers, and video makers such as TTTK, Ronja Verkasalo, Hanna Lappalainen, Mathilde Monfreux, and Lena Muchnaya.
As a teacher he has been working in Eastern and Central Europe, South America and Asia, and has been on the organizational and teaching team for Skiing on Skin - a large and diverse improvisation festival in southern Finland since 2008. In his teaching he emphasizes tactile sensory perception as a point of reference and learning. His interests revolve around power and hierarchies, politics, structures, language and the relationships between beings, ideas, and categories.
He works as a teaching assistant for the ‘Piecemaker Software’ for current students of MA CoDE, holds a BA in Social Work (2001) and an MA in Contemporary Dance Education (2015).
Center, centerline
into it,
into the center.
not on it.
in it.
Cycles and circles
all moving on the earth
from the earth
Build myself up
(not only as fictional character but)
a physical organism
from the earth
gravity and support
solidity of ground
weight of water.
flowing
like liquid
Articulate forces through you.
On these classes we are working a lot with our center and center line and the movement
around them. Ukemis, undulations, rolls, twirls, whrils.
To move and articulate the forces through the physicality.
To work together with other person(s) as one organism.
To let that organism to move against itself, in order to change to build to improvise.
We are going for articulated but dynamic movement together with a clear sense of gravity and support.
This should not be your first time in doing contact improvisation.