CPPM WORKSHOP
Külli Roosna and Kenneth Flak
18.-22.12.2023
Open Class
22.12.2023 18:00 EAMT black box
Internationally active choreographers, dancers, and digital artists Külli Roosna (Estonia) and Kenneth Flak (Norway) have collaborated since 2008. Whether they are creating their own choreographies or collaborating with others, their work deals with the narratives and technologies of the body. They have explored many themes, including deep ecology, Viking mythology, totalitarianism and internet culture. The core of their work is human experience in interconnected realities. This is often explored through the dancing body’s possibilities and limitations in a constant dialogue with the digital technologies and discourses that extend and counterpoint it.
They have performed their work all over the world. Additionally, they teach Responsive Body movement technique, composition, and sensor programming at various universities and festivals, adapting their methodology and content to different contexts.
Their interactive music and dance performance Blood Music was nominated for the Estonian Dance Awards 2015; Stalking Paradise, a commission work for Lublin Dance Theater, was selected for the biannual Polish Dance Days. Prime Mover (2018), Two Body Orchestra (2020) and Singularity (2022) were nominated for the Estonian Dance Awards.
Külli Roosna
Born 1981, is an Estonian dancer, choreographer and teacher. She graduated from Tallinn University in 2005 as a choreographer/dancer and continued her studies at Rotterdam Dance Academy in the Netherlands, obtaining her second bachelor’s degree in 2007. In 2013, she obtained an MA in choreography at Tallinn University.
As a performer, she has worked with choreographers Richard Siegal, Stian Danielsen, Karen Foss, Kari Hoaas, Cid Perlman, Dylan Newcomb, Fine5 Dance Theater, and many others.
In addition to recognition for Roosna & Flak’s work, she was awarded the First Prize at the International Festival of Modern Choreography in Vitebsk, Belarus, for her solo Circle Through.
Her teaching and performing have brought her to festivals, universities and theatres in Estonia, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, the UK, Germany, France, Poland, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Hungary, Jordan, India, Japan, Russia, Belarus, and South Korea.
In 2014-15, she was an Estonian Dance Artist Union board member and head of its Stipendium commission.
Kenneth Flak
Born in 1975, Kenneth is a Norwegian dancer, choreographer, composer and teacher. He has performed in the works of André Gingras, Dansdesign, Richard Siegal, Kari Hoaas, Preeti Vasudevan and many others.
He is educated at the National Academy of Dramatic Arts in Norway and the Amsterdam Arts School in the Netherlands.
In 2007, he received a Bessie Performer’s Award in New York for interpreting Gingras’ solo CYP17. In 2010 he was nominated for the BNG Award in Amsterdam for his choreography Of Gods and Driftwood.
Flak has taught contemporary dance and sound design at universities and festivals worldwide. He has taught and performed in Estonia, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Greenland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Belgium, the UK, Germany, France, Poland, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Hungary, North Macedonia, Serbia, China, Jordan, India, Japan, Australia, Russia, Belarus, USA, Canada, the Dominican Republic, Italy, Spain, Portugal.
A self-taught composer and creative coder, he makes music and interactive tools for live choreographies and dance films.
He was chair of the Norwegian Arts Council Commission for Dance 2018-2020.
The Responsive Body
The purpose of the Responsive Body practice is to develop the capacity to create personal movement responses to different impulses. For this, we integrate ideas from functional anatomy, martial arts and our imagination. We also challenge ourselves with opportunities and limitations provided by sensor technology.
We start with simple movements to bring attention to functional connections within the body. This gentle beginning allows us to tune into ourselves, get rooted in the present moment, and prepare for more complex tasks.
In the second part of the workshop, we bring attention to our senses. With the help of a partner, we expand the range of our movement choices, creating physical responses to internal as well as external impulses and researching different ways of organising improvised as well as fixed material.
Ultimately, we bring sensor technology into the game, enabling us to research a new set of connections between movement and sound.
