Hannah, how do you approach the work and creation process with the MA dance students?
I have been thinking a lot about dance’s current, constant struggle to defend itself. Why is it relevant? Why should it exist? Why should people come and see it? As an entry point to this creative process, and given the rather bleak performing arts landscapes of today, (funding cuts, institutions closing, wealth gaps increasing), I have started to imagine the death of dance performance. Radical death. And there is grief in it, for sure. But I see this death as a chance for freedom in expression; if dance performance is already dead, maybe it doesn’t need to justify itself anymore. We can stop trying to prove its relevance and instead ask what becomes possible when there is nothing left to prove.
Instead of holding on to a serious face, a graceful attitude, or certain ideas of what a contemporary dance body is supposed to look or move like: Can we allow for excessive, vulnerable, ridiculous expression as a way to grieve dance performance itself? Can dancing FULL OUT, for ourselves, on our own over-the-top terms (even when everything around us seems to be crumbling) be a source of collective processing, and entertainment…?
This is where the premise of an absurdist musical became interesting to me. I’ve always been fascinated by 70s/80s Hollywood musical movies, like All That Jazz and A Chorus Line; they had a huge impact on me when I was young, and were really one of the reasons I started to dance. Why were they so impactful? What was it about them that was so entrancing? Rather than looking back at these musicals nostalgically, I want to use them as tools towards processing certain feelings I recognize within the contemporary dance field. Because I don’t think it was really the format of “musical” itself that was so mesmerizing… but more so this strange, unrelenting persistence of entertainment, despite a sense of gloom surrounding it all. The performers keep dancing, the costumes keep shining, the music keeps playing, even when something seems to be falling apart underneath…
It is funny for me to come back to this now, because in my contemporary dance education this was a style of dance that one really wasn’t supposed to do or use. (With reasonable arguments, given the deeply problematic sides like power abuse in this dance genre and its history). But I do think there is something worthwhile, even necessary in looking back, in order to try and understand what is happening now. When I started looking more closely at the time in which these films were produced, I discovered that the historical situation strangely resonates with what I experience in the dance world today. Theatres were struggling with funding, with getting audiences, there were massively changing technological- and cultural conditions. And so I’m curious to place these two moments next to each other, and see what emerges.
So here we go!: To expressions of emotions, to over-acting; the graceful attitude can collapse. We can make an absurdist musical that knows it might be the last one, and still gives itself completely to the pleasure of performing. Let’s investigate this charged genre, move with and through its contradictions. Because the actual show dance technique has the potential for empowerment, joy, togetherness.
In my work I insist on being able to use a form without the abuse that its history carries. Maybe this is where we can meet: in the collapse of the need to justify ourselves.
Hannah, could you tell us about your own artistic practice and work as a choreographer, and perhaps also talk about the collaborators you bring with you to Teak to work with the students?
In my own work, I approach choreography through the lens of a dancer. I have been working as a dancer for a long time, and this experience continues to shape how I think and work as a choreographer.
As a dancer, I have often used world-building, or what I prefer to call “worlding”, as a generator for movement. I use imagined worlds to create particular movement qualities or to add a certain flair to an existing technique. The term worlding comes from the artist Ian Cheng, whose work moves between art, simulations and imagined worlds. In his 2018 publication Emissaries Guide to Worlding, he describes worlding as a practice of creating worlds that can continue to develop and change rather than simply being designed and controlled by their creator.
I really like this distinction. For me, it means creating the conditions for a world to develop rather than trying to control every part of it. It also means caring for the complexity that emerges once the world has started to exist. I see myself more as a gardener rather than an architect of the created world.
This is also how I approached the collaborators I invited into this project. I asked Martin Sieweke to create the costumes and scenography from the premise of 1970s musicals. He interprets this genre as something that has already been performed hundreds of times: the costumes have been worn again and again, carrying traces of previous performances. They are no longer new, but have developed a certain patina.
Suzanne Cleerdin, a musician and DJ based in Brussels, is someone I have been working with for several years. Her approach to this world is to work with instruments that might not historically have been used in that period, but that can nevertheless evoke a memory of it. I find this very interesting: rather than recreating the past, we are trying to create a feeling of remembering something that perhaps never existed exactly in that way.
As dramaturg and rehearsal director (dance captain), I invited Kadence Neill, a choreographer based in Helsinki, to join the process. Kadence and I first got to know each other in 2018 as dancer colleagues, working together in large productions with Nature Theatre of Oklahoma. We have continued to work together as dancers since then, and our shared experience of being part of large-scale productions is an important part of our relationship. This project is a new way of working together for us: rather than meeting as dancers within someone else’s choreography, I have invited her into the process. I really value her dedication to making big productions work, as well as her attention to craft and to the practical and human complexities of working with a large group.
I have also invited Vilma Mankonen to be an outside eye. Vilma is a dancer and choreographer based in Helsinki, and I got to know them through my MA in Choreography in Stockholm. I value them enormously for their critical and very sharp eye. Vilma has a way of seeing things very clearly and articulating what they notice, which is particularly valuable to me when I am deep inside the process.
For me, bringing these collaborators into the process is also part of the worlding. Each of them brings a different way of thinking about the world; they aren’t just a production team. They are different ways of looking at and developing the world of the piece.
Simo, it is the second time, that Moving in November presents a TeaK Open Studio. How do you look at this collaboration and its importance?
A concrete connection and dialogue with the international Moving in November contemporary dance festival is a meaningful part of our MA degree programme. For many years, our students have engaged with the festival by attending performances and participating in Soup Talks. We have also invited festival artists to lead workshops for our students. In this way, students gain a hands-on, practical understanding of the festival’s works and the themes they address. In previous years, our programme has also organized Soup Talk Panels, where artistic and pedagogical questions have been explored in dialogue with the festival’s curatorial statement, the pre-note.
These enriching discussions have opened up perspectives on artist education for a wider audience.
Two years ago, our collaboration developed into the Open Studio format, which offers students an opportunity to present the group process of their final artistic project together with a guest choreographer.
For the students, Open Studio provides a chance to become more familiar with the festival organization and the people behind it. The experience was really great, and for this reason we wanted to continue developing this format.
For audiences, Open Studio is a wonderful opportunity to get to know our soon-to-graduate MA students. I therefore warmly encourage everyone to come and see what they have been working on. The first Open Studio was a great success, and I believe that this year we will once again have a full audience in the studio. Welcome, everyone!
TeaK Open Studio
Uniarts Helsinki’s Theatre Academy, Theatre Hall 12.11.2026 15.00
Performers: TADaC – Anniina Dyster, Inari Hulkkonen, Mathilda Kauppila, Paavali Velinpoika Kärkkäinen, Sonjis Laine, Laura Linna, Beatričė Mažintaitė, Julia Mäkelä, Venla Niitemaa, Aurora Suohonen
Choreography: Hannah Krebs
Dramaturgy: Kadence Neill
Costume design, scenography: Martin Sieweke
Sound design: Suzanne Cleerdin
Lighting design: Alex Hautamäki (MA Programme in Lighting Design)
Outside eye: Vilma Mankonen
Photo: Martin Sieweke
