Bodily poetics – Anna Jussilainen

How to touch the whole soul with one touch?

How to create stories together by movement and touch?

How to play and surrender into creativity?

 

I am interested in creating a space to explore the contact duet as a poetical encounter. For me that means playing with the dynamics, different ways of touching, and creating curiosity. What really intrigues me is stepping out of the forever rolling point of contact and into a more exploratory space while not forgetting the physics either.

This workshop approaches the theme with warming up the realities of skin, muscles, space and silence, and playing between them. How to create different kind of sensations and how to use them to spice up your dancing? What kinds of stories develop out of different bodily landscapes?

For me poetics starts with surrendering to the *silences*. Silence is something we often fear in life and dancing. We are used to move, do, be active, take an initiative, and be accepted that way in the society. Yet we often lose ourselves, and the dance. Silence can be extremely intimate which creates its beauty and is why it is not always easy to approach. It is a powerful state bringing us more into contact with ourselves, others, and the world. But what is silence actually? Can extremely active movement be silent and a physical pause not? What is the difference between active and passive silences?

Another aspect of poetics is *surprises*. Staying alive, dancing the whole of myself and exploring the physical and emotional landscape of my partner. What kind of a landscape is my partner? How can I play with that? Maybe it’s only my fingers that start to walk on the arm in front of me or a soft warm blow that brings me into a very acrobatic phase. Or maybe in this dance the poetics arises from a fleshy wrestle. How to play with the dynamics and qualities of touch?

Read Anna Jussilainen’s Biography here