Workshop with Tomi Paasonen (Germany)
In this workshop, participants will experiment with Tomi Paasonen’s task-based improvisation methods and his approach to cultivating original material. Together with the choreographer, they will delve into movement principles that Paasonen has developed for his various projects over the last two decades, including kinetic coordinations based on neurological exercises, incorporating visualisation, imagination, memory, cognitive awareness, extreme states and paradoxes. These techniques are used as means to expand each dancer’s movement vocabulary, regardless of technical background.
Tomi Paasonen, born 1970 in Helsinki, Finland, is a choreographer, artistic director, dancer, curator, mentor and teacher. After dancing as a soloist at the Hamburg Ballet of John Neumeier (1989-1994), at Lines Ballet by Alonzo King in San Francisco (1994-1995) and The Joffrey Ballet in Chicago (1995-1997), his dance career was cut short because of an accident. In 2002 he moved to Berlin, where he launched PAA (Public Artistic Affairs) and worked internationally as a choreographer and stage director branching out into other genres. During the years 2013-2018 he was Artistic Director of ITAK in Finland. 2019-2020 marked the year of his return back on stage after 23 years. His autobiographical “Retrospectrum – 5 solos for 5 decades” is his first ever solo piece he has choreographed for himself. His work has been performed and produced throughout Europe, in New York, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco, Brazil, Hong Kong and Tokyo.
Without Distance Platform is part of the project „Life Long Burning (LLB) – Towards a sustainable Eco-System for Contemporary Dance in Europe”, co-funded by the Creative Europe Program of the European Union and National Culture Fund, in partnership with the Tempus Fugit project, organized by the Goethe-Institut Bulgarien and the French Institute of Bulgaria, on an idea of Metheor, in the frame of the French-German Cultural Fund.