Teachers
Tero Saarinen Company technique and repertoire workshops are taught by Saarinen and Sini Länsivuori, one of Saarinen’s closest collaborators since 1998. In addition to teaching Sini also works as a dancer and choreographer’s assistant in the Company.
Tero Saarinen
“My movement style is clearly an outcome of my experiences as a dancer. When I teach, I wish to transfer the knowledge I’ve collected during my 20-year career.
My goal is to make full use of my students’ already learned techniques and find, liberate and further nourish the potential capacity of each individual.
To transmit and further develop my own style of movement I have created “alphabets” that I teach in my technique classes. I try to encourage my dancers to be alert, aware and awake of all the endless possibilities that lie in their own physical existence.
Technically speaking I pay a lot of attention to the feet, fingers, eyes and skin. I focus on acknowledging the weight of the body and activating the extremities of the body - all the nerve endings. When dancers are aware of all these nerve endings they become authentic, alive and also more versatile. My goal is to reach a state of awareness where even the skin is curious and sensitive. All this leads in to a dance that is constantly alive and surprising, like our flora and fauna.”
Sini Länsivuori
“My main goal is helping my students improve the quality of their movement by being aware of not only the movement of the body but also of the person inside.
I don’t believe in just learning the steps. I believe in transmitting meaning and content, communicating through the language of dance.
As a teacher I think it is first of all crucial to be able create a positive and supporting atmosphere. I believe that a learning environment like this helps students reach their full capacity and find their own interpretation.
Tero and I both try to help our students by providing them with tools instead of answers. A tool can be, for example, the creation of mental images that help in reaching a particular type of movement. I also try to share my personal experience of Tero’s movement vocabulary on a concrete level by “translating” his mental images and analyzing them with the students - for example by giving them concrete physical or anatomical tips.”
Alongside her career as a dancer in both classical and contemporary fields, Sini Länsivuori finished her studies in dance pedagogy at Jyväskylä Polytechnic in 2004. In addition to Tero Saarinen Company workshops, Länsivuori has been teaching for the Dance Department of the Theatre Academy in Finland, the Finnish National Ballet School, as well as the Helsinki Dance Company, the dance company of the Helsinki City Theatre.