Western Uusimaa Dance Institute Hurja Piruetti receives international dance exchange students from Sri Lanka!
Hurja Piruetti is piloting a new exchange project, in the frame of which international dance students will get to know the Finnish basic education in the art of dance together with Hurja Piruetti’s teachers and students during the next two months. The project is carried out in Hurja Piruetti´s collaboration with Derana TV (Sri Lanka) and Lärkkulla Folk Academy (Raseborg, Finland).
The participating Sri Lankan dancers were chosen from City of Dance TV dance competition. Hurja Piruetti’s dancers will visit Sri Lanka as guests of Derana TV next autumn.
During their stay, the visiting young dancers get to know western dance art in the form of basic education in the arts. Basic education in the arts is a unique Finnish form of education. The curriculum followed at Western Uusimaa Dance Institute Hurja Piruetti is along the guidelines given by the Finnish National Agency for education, and has been approved by the local education and culture committee.
In addition to basic education in the arts, the culture exchange aims to form a firm collaboration with the local Lärkkulla Folk Academy. During daytime, the young guests will participate in English language classes at the academy, where they will also be accommodated. The dance education and projects will take place during the evenings.
”Lärkkulla has previous history of collaboration with Hurja Piruetti, mainly through its ‘Lärkkulla Musical’ course, but now also ‘Lärkkulla Languages’ is in the picture. We have observed Hurja Piruetti’s growth for a good while, and we are glad to be part of it. The Sri Lankan dance teachers will live, eat, and study English at Lärkkulla. We can teach them a lot, and we can learn a lot from them, too. Lärkkulla is and will always be interested in international collaboration. Previously, we have had some individual students from Sri Lanka, but never a group. This project is exciting and interesting also from Lärkkulla’s part.”
Juhani Jäntti, principal of Lärkkulla Folk Academy
The project’s goal is to produce a dance piece together with the young dancers. Hurja Piruetti’s own dancers and the visiting youth have been preparing the co-production since last autumn, rehearsing apart from each other. During the visit, the production will be made whole and the piece will be performed at Kajaani Dance Festival 31.1.-2.2.2020. Hurja Piruetti’s teachers Sathis Hettithantri and Katja Köngäs act as the directors of the project. Other participating parties are Derana TV’s producer Pathirannahalage Keerthi Nandana and Hurja Piruetti’s cinematographer Linus Westerlund.
”This is a fantastic and interesting continuation for Hurja Piruetti’s international journey. What makes this an especially great endeavour is the local collaboration with Lärkkulla Folk Academy, which provides a new kind of opportunity to combine language and dance studies. Basic education in arts does not only aim to study one form of art, instead, it should provide the youth with a possibility to an extensive expansion of cultural understanding. By watching, listening, experiencing and communicating. Via movement, if a common language is otherwise missing. Combining language, dance and communication has been a strong theme during the current academic year at Hurja Piruetti. Several school projects, dance-and-language projects and vast collaborations speak volumes about the local operators’ active and spry work in the culture scene. I think that here in Raseborg we are large-scale cultural busy bees”, Katja Köngäs, principal of Western Uusimaa Dance Institute Hurja Piruetti
Pic Maria Knaapinen