During the festival week Sara will be teaching contemporary morning classes and 'Playing the Groove' workshop for professionals. She'll also be teaching in one of the courses organized in co-operation with STOPP ry.

Sara, this is your first visit to Kuopio Dance Festival but have you taught in Finland before? Have you worked with Finns?Yes, in Turku, with improvisation in music and dance. And with a number of Finnish dancers and students for example at DOCH (School of Dance and Circus/Stockholm University of the Arts). The Finnish dancers I have worked with both in the context of education and within choreographic projects have made an impression with great integrity, engagement and devotion to their work.

What do you expect from your visit?To discover and unfold things together, in dialogue and collaboration. I prepare my part with a clear structure which includes space for improvisation and flexibility, and I hope to facilitate a space for exploration, making of new connections and a great deal of play.

We had a chat with Sara Ruddock, one of the dance teachers at Kuopio Dance

Festival in 2017. Sara is an esteemed dance artist,

teacher and choreographer from Stockholm, currently

based in London. Could you tell about your background as a dancer/teacher?I have been active as dance artist, choreographer and teacher since 2002, mainly based in Sweden.

In recent years I have focused on making my own work, performing and researching in and through my dance/choreographic practice, investigating re­lationships of movement and voice, en­gagement of rhythm, groove and bodily listening.

Also I have collaborated on projects with other performers, artists and mu­sicians, and previously working with a range of choreographers as dancer, with interpretation and creation of choreo­

graphic material.Working with Deborah

Hay has informed my work a lot as solo perfor mer and crea­tor, providing great tools and strategies for practising pre­sence and challenging myself as performer.

My teaching practice has continuously been intertwined with my artistic practice over the years, and the flow and

interchange of information bet ween the two is something I really value. I’ve found it produces both clarity and confusion which helps me to keep on asking questions, to stay in motion and in a practice of listening.

I have worked for several years as lecturer of Contemporary Dance at DOCH, as teacher at the Royal Swedish Ballet School, teaching professionals, and leading workshops for example in improvisation and movement­voice­music around universities of the Nordic and Baltic countries.

Thank you and welcome to Kuopio in June!

Tiia Moilanen

Playing the Groove with

What is the most important thing that you want to teach during these summer intensives in Kuopio?For me the focus is more on people learning things, rather than me teaching them. I believe you teach yourself things in connection to what you already know and not know. It helps, I think, to be curious and open to noticing the new and allowing new connections. For me it also helps with a light touch, a fluid presence – learning without thinking about learning, learning by doing and paying attention to your own experience.

Something I hope people take with them and value from these classes and workshops is their own unique experi­ence and the knowledge produced in themselves, by exploring and discove­ring things both as individuals and in a shared collective practice, by noticing, playing, being in relationship with…

Playing the Groove workshop sounds interesting, what does it include?This workshop invites to the practice of Playing the Groove, which involves a pla cing and shifting of yourself in relationship with different aspects of groove. I relate to ‘groove’ as a musical concept of rhythmical repetition, as metaphor, and as a musical­phy sical interac­tive phenomenon where forces of push and pull can urge you to engage physically and make you want to move.

The practice was something I developed as part of a choreographic solo project and perfor­mance in 2013. Although it has some specific building blocks of activities and tasks, it can be interpreted and practiced in new ways by each person. My aim for the workshop is to facilitate experimenting and playing with forces of push and pull, insistence and resis­tance, as well as relationships between individual and collective groove.

What would you say to someone who is thinking about participating?Come and join! And let’s create an allowing space together with room for exploration, sharing and play.

Sara Ruddock

Photos © Thomas Zamolo

Photo © Håkan Larsson

Let’s create an allowing space

together with room for exploration, sharing and play.