Hi! My name is Reettaleena Rauhala, I am currently facilitating the CREATE project at Hurja Piruetti. This project is part of my Master’s dissertation research, in which I am dreaming up an example of what holistic dance education could be.
In CREATE, I work together with five dancers, exploring ways to tap into their own creative energy. From my perspective as the teacher, this kind of working calls for space holding, which to me means building containers within which it is safe for the participants to wander, get lost, and find new. In practice, these containers are, for example, suggestions for starting points from which we together begin an exploration towards the unknown.
This way of working feels both liberating and challenging for me. It is wonderful to let go of the need to be the teacher who holds all the answers, and instead make space for the wisdom and knowledge that exists in each of us. To me it means acknowledging that we are all interconnected, feeling human beings, who have something valuable to share. At the same time, this is precisely the challenge and the research question: how to hold space for the diverse experience and knowledge that is present in class?
I hope that taking part in this project will give the participants a stronger sense of agency: that they can have an impact in artistic processes, that they are artists themselves and capable of creating wonderful things. I also hope that through this way of working, the participants learn to better listen to their embodied experience, and this way find their way home, into the body.
What a Monday! The week started with a Hurja speed right from the morning. Grateful! A warm thank you to the Karjaa-Pohja Savings Bank Foundation for the grant. Thank you for organizing the event Marina. Thank you to the dancers from the wonderful duo performance, Aina & Noel. Thank you to Lilla Hembageriet for the help.
From this, it is good to continue the hurja journey towards new projects.
The Covid-19 Pandemic has shown just how important dance teachers are in the lives of a large proportion of the population. Dance teachers everywhere took to technology to support their students mental and physical well-being by offering online classes as well as moral support while the world was stranded at home.
Dance teachers provide so much more than just a dance lesson, offering support and discipline and teaching young people how to work as part of a group that relies on each other.
Now in its 9th year, the Dance School of the Year Awards was founded by Anne Walker MBE to celebrate the achievements of dance schools who so often do not receive the recognition they deserve.
The finalists of this prestigious award have just been announced and Hurja Piruettiare honored to be one of the shortlisted schools.
Good news make your day. Our very own Sathis Hettithantri and Godwin Otieno have won second place in an international dance competition! Good job birds. 
The collaborative projects between Hurja Piruetti, schools and kindergartens are in full swing around Raseborg. You can meet Hurja Piruetti's dance and circus teachers at various schools and kindergartens, with teaching in e.g. acrobatics, circus and dance! The picture shows a group from Kiila kindergarten performing a physical painting task.
Moving together and learning something new is just wonderful!
This year's students began working on their high school diplomas in dance and final projects in the advanced course in dance (basic education in art).
Here we go!