Butoh is a dance form that begins from emptiness filled with images, sensations and a sense of being moved rather than from a set choreography. There may be choreography, but it is distilled through each being’s unique lived body. I perform, teach weekly classes in Turku and lead workshops for adult groups.
I have practiced butoh for over nine years. I was introduced to it in 2017 at Osku Leinonen’s Butoh Laboratory, and have since studied with Seisaku, Ken Mai and Tashi Iwaoka, as well as in peer-based contexts. I am particularly interested in the sense of being moved in butoh, and in how the art form relates to traditional trance dance techniques.
Vägi Butoh
Vägi Butoh is my ongoing artistic research into Karelian folk belief and how it meets butoh. Vägi (in Finnish väki) is a force that, in Finnish-Karelian thought, acts on the body. In Finnish and Karelian the name is written without the final h: vägi buto.
The idea began when I read Laura Stark-Arola’s article on the dynamistic body in traditional Finnish-Karelian thought. In it the person is not divided into mind and body, nor into a sharply bounded individual, but is in continuous, porous interaction with the surroundings and with vägi. This sounded very much like butoh, where dance often begins by opening to an image or an impulse and being moved by it, as if someone else were moving the body.
Working in deep nature immersion
My method is long immersion in a place. For the work Lyylin (Offering) I walked the same path in the forest of Ruissalo every day, until a path had formed in the forest and the birds no longer raised the alarm when I came. I danced in the forest, or, to be precise, the forest danced me.
One day of the process was documented by Anne Kalliola, who also interviewed me and wrote about the work in Kulttuuritoimitus (in Finnish). The research is continuous.
Classes
I teach weekly butoh classes on Wednesdays, 17:00–19:00, at Kirkastamo in Manilla, Turku (Itäinen Rantakatu 64 b 2 C, 2nd floor). A class includes a warm-up, long meditative butoh exercises and improvisation. No previous dance or butoh experience is needed. Come as you are and wear clothes you can move in; we dance barefoot or in socks. Classes are taught in Finnish and/or English, depending on the participants.
Autumn 2026 season, nine classes: 9.9., 16.9., 23.9., 30.9., 7.10., 25.11., 2.12., 9.12. and 16.12.
- Single class 15–20 € (you choose the price)
- 5-class card 70 €
- Full season, 9 classes, 100 €
Register for classes
Fill in the form and I will confirm your place by email.
Your details are used only to reply to your registration. Questions: contact form.
Please note that the space is reached by a spiral staircase and is not accessible.
I also lead butoh workshops for adult groups, including workshops that combine butoh and nature connection. Send a booking request
Further reading
Stark(-Arola), Laura 2002. The Dynamistic Body in Traditional Finnish-Karelian Thought: Väki, vihat, nenä, and luonto. In Anna-Leena Siikala (ed.), Myth and Mentality: Studies in Folklore and Popular Thought. Studia Fennica Folkloristica 8. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 67–103.