Satu Rekola & Ulla Koivisto

Ulla Koivisto trained under John Cage, Merce Cunninghamin and Robert Rauchenberg at the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in New York, 1974–1978.

“After my studies I returned to Finland and have worked as a freelance choreographer for over three decades. I still use the Alexander technique I learned in New York, and at the Saari Residence we gathered together in the dance studio a couple of times a week to relax and become accustomed to the energy produced by our own bodies. The artists named themselves my secret dance group. Jonimatti Joutsijärvi, Satu and I developed an extremely fruitful cross-disciplinary working relationship at Saari Residence.

Satu Rekola has worked as a dancer with various choreographers, and has steadily worked her way to her present position at the forefront of modern dance, both nationally and internationally.

Satu is always ready to experiment, and so our collaboration in the dance studio was very productive. Satu would dance for an hour or so while Jonimatti wrote up the script. They also danced and rehearsed various moves in different areas throughout the Residence, including with Mineo Kuroda’s Wa stone statue and elsewhere in the yard.

In the dance studio we worked on Australian choreographer Russell Dumas’ material. In the room, from Dumas’ international project Dance for the Time Being, is a solo dance piece that has offered a challenge to dancers in Australia, the United States, and now to us in Finland.

It feels wonderful to look back on how energizing our collaboration was. We keep in touch still and continue to inspire each other. Overall the cross-disciplinary experience has been enormously invigorating”.