Stretch Further - Exploring Identity

8:30-10:00 – Workshops / meetings during morning in Radisson Blu (Hallituskatu 1) and Cultural Centre Valve (Hallituskatu 7) – locations are being announced on Mon 7.9. at latest.

Registration for the workshops takes place through a survey sent to your email.

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1. Agate Bankava (LT): ”Dive in” 

Dive in -workshop is based on ideas and materials that Agate Bankava is researching in her newest solo work through her self-developed Intuition Method. The method is rooted in a deep interest in inner feelings and actions guided by one’s intuition and gut instincts. It also involves self-observation, observing the surrounding space, listening to silence, and allowing oneself to be present and move with the flow of nature. Agate believes that this kind of connection with oneself and the world creates a unique way of moving, sensing, and being together with an audience. The workshop invites participants to explore how intuition, attention, and sensitivity can shape movement and create a shared experience between the performer, the space, and the audience.

Agate Bankava is a contemporary dance artist attracted to the movement and dance from an early age. She started dancing folk dances at the age of three and continued with ballet, eventually graduating from the Riga Ballet School. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degree at the Latvian Academy of Culture as a contemporary dance artist. Her focus is on collaborative work methods, interdisciplinarity, and sharing. She enjoys working with communities and non-professionals, valuing the moments when art transcends boundaries and connects with people, creating the magic of togetherness. 

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2. Marjo Kiukaanniemi (FI): Morning Argentine Tango 

Lead, follow, let the music carry you. Every step and weight shift involves leading and following. In this class, you dance in both the leader and follower roles, listening and walking. ”Start the day with Argentine tango” – ”Dare to lead and dare to be led.”

Marjo Kiukaanniemi is a dance artist and musician based in Oulu, as well as the founder and co-artistic director of Tango Theatre Kiuta. She initially ventured out into the world as a contemporary dancer but returned to Oulu as an Argentine tango dancer. Tango—along with its movement language and culture—plays a central role in the work of Marjo and Tango Theatre Kiuta. Together with her partner, Timo Hakkarainen, Marjo teaches Argentine tango as a social dance and organizes tango events across Finland. She dances tango in both roles: as a follower and as a leader.

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3. Tanja Råman & John Collingswood (TaikaBox, Oulu) and Stephanie Felber (Munich): Hybrid Stages – introduction and creative session

An introduction to TaikaBox, Stephanie Felber and their collaboration. The workshop includes a performance demo of the Connected Studio System, introducing the technology and the processes involved in connecting two studios in geographically different places. In the creative session the workshop participants get to explore the potential of dancing in a hybrid studio and build a system together to dance in Oulu and Munich simultaneously.

Tanja Råman is a Finnish choreographer and dance artist, and co-founder of TaikaBox. Her choreographic practice explores technology as an artistic tool and the relationship between people and digital environments, always in search of genuine encounters. Tanja is active in building the dance field in Northern Finland through international collaborations.

John Collingswood is a British artist and co-founder of TaikaBox who explores interactive and digital media within a performance context on stage, screen and site, treating technology not as a support function but as a creative material, one he shapes into the choreography itself, opening up new textures of movement, light, and space for audiences to encounter.

Stephanie Felber is a German artist working at the intersection of multimedia works, participatory formats, and site-specific performance in theatres and public spaces. Her projects merge choreography and film, invite audiences into responsive, co-created encounters, and use psychogeographic approaches to explore how space, body, and society shape one another.

TaikaBox is an Oulu-based company, originally founded in the UK in 2010 by choreographer Tanja Råman and video artist John Collingswood: combining technology, movement, community and sustainability to create new ways to experience dance. As well as producing more than 50 performance works for stage and digital platforms, TaikaBox runs international residency programmes such as Oulu Dance Hack and Tiny Spaces Deep Connections, and has developed the Online Connected Studio System (OCSS) for cross-border collaboration.

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4. Titta Court (FI): Morning class of Skinner Releasing Technique

Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT), created by Joan Skinner, is a somatic movement, dance and creative practice with a core underlying principle of releasing blocked energy, held tension and habitual patterns in body mind. It is a highly accessible but radical and transformative approach to dance, movement and creative process. SRT enables us to move with connectedness, aliveness and presence.

Titta Court is a Finnish dance artist, choreographer, teacher, producer and mentor whose artistic practice is deeply rooted in the North. She has devoted her career to bringing contemporary dance into diverse contexts and places, from stages and festivals to public spaces, nature, institutions and private homes, often through multidisciplinary and cross-border collaborations. Her practice is grounded in somatic approaches, improvisation and an embodied relationship with place, with the Skinner Releasing Technique playing a central role.

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5. Viivi Forsman (FI): Grooves & Rhythms 

This workshop is an invitation to explore groove. With percussiveness as the key element, we will dive into a world of grooves, rocks, bounces and loops based on Hip Hop dance language. During the workshop we will move from basic techniques to a (sweaty) journey of rhythm, play and connection.

Viivi Forsman is a dance artist from Oulu, currently based in Paris. Club and street dances are at the heart of Viivi’s practice, forming the foundation of her work within the performing arts field. At the moment, Viivi’s choreographic thinking is situated somewhere between Arctic nature, queer questions and raves. In recent years, Viivi has worked as a dancer with choreographer Nacera Belaza, as well as on a variety of international projects. Viivi will be spending a large part of 2026 in Oulu: earlier in the year working on the Xulu202x project, and currently as part of Faravidin Maa, a new production by Oulu Theatre and Flow Productions.