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2020 – Pain: The pain is a system that is essential for our being, it is our alarm system, which teaches us to avoid danger and to take care of ourselves and our bodies. In its best, pain teaches us to respect others and other bodies. And in the worst case the pain can be used in inhumane way, as in a torture, where an infliction of pain is a purpose of its act. According to Scarry (1985) the pain, especially when it is intense, can destroy a person’s self and world and can be language-destroying, because there is an absence of literary representations of pain, the failure of language, which let us fall silent before pain. So, how to research, explore, palpate and survey the body in pain, when it can be presented only with “as if” structure or metaphors? Could it be the body that can give voice for the pain, which does not have voice of its own? 

2008-2017 Doctor of Arts (Dance): My artistic pedagogical research Ruotuun taipumaton – reflections on learning to teach dance was a both personal and shared reflection on a specific learning-teaching experiment that took place during 2008–2010. The learning-teaching experiment revolved around dance improvisation and was based on seven movement themes, which were selected from primitive reflexes. Our practice was formed from getting together, entering into the space, deciding a movement theme, and from there to moving and dancing. I wrote about the new pedagogical attitude and approaches that I have learned during the research. Finally I reached the conclusion that teaching involves a continuous and open-ended questioning about one’s own practices.

During spring 2019 I worked with the following research: Combining Artistic Practice and Entrepreneurial Activity: a pedagogical development challenge in the higher education of the performing arts. How to identify and infuse useful entrepreneurial and working life skills into the holistic artistic expertise? How such entrepreneurial skills could be integrated and condensed into the full curriculum of art studies? This interdisciplinary research project aims to address this challenge, creating a space in which new practices, pedagogical approaches and ways of thinking can be developed. It will provide solutions for the educational development in the performing arts in a way that generates a new artistic expertise, which contributes to transfers from the field of art to other occupational field; boosting employment opportunities.

Research environment: CERADA (Affiliated researcher) and in cooperation with Theatreacademy Degree Program in Dance BA and MA Rahoitus / Funder: Jenny ja Antti Wihurin rahasto (2019)