Ismo Dance Company: Pneuma Enthusiastikon
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Date
11.9-13.9.2025
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Duration
1 H 40 min (inc. intermission)
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Venue
Erkko Hall
Show times
Thu 11.9.2025 at 19.00
Fri 12.9.2025 at 19.00
Sat 13.9.2025 at 15.00
First half, duration approx. 40 min.
Second half, duration approx. 36 min.
In addition
The performance uses stage smoke.
Credits
Choreography, concept and direction: Ismo-Pekka Heikinheimo
Dance: Jenna Broas, Tanja Illukka, Mia Jaatinen, Paavali Kärkkäinen, Minttu Myräkkä, Patrik Riipinen and Alina Sakko
Music: Jouko Kyhälä
Set design: Simon le Roux
Costume design: Nilla Heikkilä
Lighting design: Pekka Pitkänen
Biographies
Ismo-Pekka Heikinheimo
Ismo-Pekka Heikinheimo is a long-standing dance artist who has created over 60 choreographies, including three commissions for Helsinki Festival, works for international dance companies and festivals, and tours across 15 countries from Namibia to Iceland.
Heikinheimo has performed in works by renowned international choreographers, including Carolyn Carlson, Andrew Degroat, Sylvie Guillermin, Kilina Kremona, Didier Deschamps, Lea Anderson, Jessica Iwanson, Nanna Nilsson, Christine Meldahl and Ólöf Ingófsdóttir.
He has danced with Zodiak – Center for New Dance, Helsinki City Theatre, Aurinkobaletti, Dance Theatre Hurjaruuth and Dance Theatre Raatikko, as well as in numerous international productions.
Heikinheimo graduated as a dancer–choreographer from the London Contemporary Dance School in 1989 and earned an MA in Visual Culture from Aalto University in 2014.
From 1996 to 2001 he served as Lecturer in Dance at the Theatre Academy’s Department of Dance. Between 2005 and 2010 he worked as Regional Artist in Dance for Central Finland and as the Artistic Director of the festival he founded, Tanssin Aika. He has been the choreographer and Artistic Director of Ismo Dance Company since 2003. In 2019 he received the major art prize of the Alfred Kordelin Foundation.
Patrik Riipinen
Patrik Riipinen is a Tampere-based dance artist, performer and choreographer. He graduated from the Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance in Austria and earlier from Tampere Conservatoire. Since returning to Finland in 2022, he has worked with Dance Theatre Tsuumi, Tampere Theatre, Tampere Opera, Dance Theatre MD and Pirkanmaa Dance Center, among others. He is currently Co-Artistic Director of the new contemporary dance community Duckstep Company, as well as a freelance dancer and choreographer. Riipinen’s work combines diverse dance and movement practices through physicality, rhythm and playfulness.
Alina Sakko
Alina Sakko is a dance artist who graduated from London Contemporary Dance School (BA Hons, 2021). She works actively as both choreographer and performer, mainly in Finland. As a performer, she has worked with Routa Company, MimoArt Company, Kajaani City Theatre, Myrskyryhmä, Taneli Törmä / Location X and Vilma Tihilä, among others. Before entering the contemporary dance field, Sakko spent five years as a ballet dancer with the Finnish National Ballet, Vanemuine Theatre and Ballet Finland.
Sakko’s artistic work explores the accessibility of contemporary dance on experiential and conceptual levels. Through choreographic content and process structures she seeks ways to reach diverse audiences. Her works have been presented at, for example, Moving in November (FI), Art Ii Biennial (FI), Resolution Festival (UK), Yötön / Nattlös Festival (SWE), Kinosalonki Sofia in Raahe and Kontula Senior Centre. She is part of the international support network MOŸ MOŸ collective.
Tanja Illukka
Tanja Illukka earned her MA in Dance from the Theatre Academy in 2003. For over 20 years she has collaborated with choreographers Ismo-Pekka Heikinheimo, Petri Kekoni, Heidi Masalin and Favela Vera Ortiz. Illukka works as a project-based company dancer with Ismo Dance Company and Petri Kekoni Company. In KATVE [blind spot] Company she is active as both dancer and choreographer. In 2023 she received the Tanssin maineteko -award.
Mia Jaatinen
Mia Jaatinen is a dancer–choreographer and pedagogue working in the independent dance field. She holds an MA in Dance (Theatre Academy, 2015) and a degree in Dance Pedagogy (Oulu University of Applied Sciences, 2013). Jaatinen works with Kinetic Orchestra (Gravity 2023, Silence 2024 at Helsinki City Theatre) and the MMM collective (with Maria Autio and Minna Kaaronen). She has also performed in works by Mirva Mäkinen, Iiro Näkki, Lin Da, Johanna Nuutinen and Sonya Lindfors. Her own recent creations include RIEHA (Zodiak 2023), Game Changer (MMM 2022) and Red Desert (2021). She teaches at Helsinki Dance Institute and as a guest for Helsinki Dance Company morning classes and at Tanssivintti.
As an artist, Jaatinen is interested in performance work that brings together embodied lived experience, play with movement lineages, the dancer’s multilayered expressivity and diverse modes of being within the context of dance. She is inspired by falling, spirals, quirky textures, partnering, witty structuring of movement, dancing together, and gentleness and empathy.
Jenna Broas
Jenna Broas is a dance artist based in Porvoo. She works in the independent field in multiple roles—as performer, convener and choreographer. She earned her MA in Dance from the Theatre Academy in 2017, after earlier studying and working in London. Broas has performed and choreographed in various ensembles in Finland and across Europe, working with Tero Saarinen (FI), Petri Kekoni (FI), Jenni-Elina von Bagh (FI), Sara Gurevitsch (FI), Anders Duckworth (UK/SV), Joanna Kalm (ES) and Johanna Nuutinen (FI), among others.
In her own artistic practice, Broas choreographs with the body’s imagination and the choreography of materials and space. At the core of her embodied practice are memories rising from the subconscious, the dancer’s physicality, and play along the edges between abstraction and the recognizable. Her work is closely linked to collaboration with spatial and video artist Fabian Nyberg as the artist duo Broas & Nyberg.
Paavali Velinpoika Kärkkäinen
Paavali Velinpoika Kärkkäinen is a Helsinki-based dance artist, choreographer and performer. He holds a BA in Dance & Choreography from The Danish National School of Performing Arts (Copenhagen campus) and earlier trained as a dancer at Tampere Conservatoire. He is beginning MA studies in Dance Performance at the Theatre Academy.
While in Denmark he worked with choreographers such as Judith Sanchez Ruiz (CU), Tiziana Farcchiola (IT), Snørre Elvin (DK), Alice Martucci (IT), Cristian Duarte (BR) and Alma Söderberg (SE). In Copenhagen he also collaborated with musician Adrian Barstad Andresen (NO) and dance artist Paulina Rewucka (PL).
In Finland he has worked with Ari Numminen, Lassi Sairela, Tuomo Railo and Petri Kekoni. Kärkkäinen is part of the multidisciplinary Ruoste collective, with performances at the Outokumpu Mine Festival and the Helsinki Music Centre. His practice focuses on exploring sensitivities and forms created by the body, inspired by sculptural postures that serve as end, middle and starting points for dance.
Minttu Myräkkä
Minttu Myräkkä graduated as a dancer from Balettakademien in Stockholm in 2010. Since then, she has worked as a dancer throughout Finland and taught mainly in Helsinki. In recent years she has performed in works by Iiro Näkki, with Tero Saarinen Company, Susanna Leinonen Company and Dance Theatre MD. Pneuma Enthusiastikon is her third production with Ismo Dance Company.
Professionally, it has always been important for Myräkkä to strengthen her own artistry and remain active in her creative practice. Within various independent ensembles she has contributed to dance films and videos, full-length performances and smaller artistic experiments.
Myräkkä has also approached dance artistry and the dance field from an academic angle. In her Master’s thesis at the University of Jyväskylä she examined these themes through extensive interviews.
Niila Heikkilä
Nilla Heikkilä is a Helsinki-based artist whose work examines bodily boundaries and how social structures shape the experience and representation of bodies. He completed a BA in Fashion Design at Metropolia and HTW Berlin. He lived in Berlin for several years during his studies, developing his artistic practice. In 2022 he graduated and continued at Aalto University, completing an MA focused on experimental fashion design and multidisciplinary practice in 2025. Combining technical skill with an artistic approach, he continually challenges the conventions of fashion—both aesthetically and ideologically.
Jouko Kyhälä
Jouko Kyhälä has been a professional folk musician since 1992. He has played in over 20 ensembles and appears on more than 30 recordings. He is currently the Artistic Director and a musician of the harmonica quartet Sväng, which has given nearly 600 concerts in 27 countries. Other active projects include duos with accordionist Maria Kalaniemi, Swedish jazz harmonica player Filip Jers, and baroque violinist Kreeta-Maria Kentala.
Kyhälä also gives solo concerts—acoustically in folk music and with electronics in experimental music—with solo performances in Finland, France and South Korea. He also appears in jazz and pop productions and in various free-improvisation concerts.
He has frequently collaborated with contemporary dance as a musician, composing and/or performing music for 10 dance productions and taking part in around 100 improvised dance-and-music performances as a member of the Suomussalmi group. He has also worked as a theatre musician at the Finnish National Theatre. His compositions include music for his solo albums, for Sväng, for Sväng and male choir, for contemporary dance works, children’s theatre and film. Since 1996 he has taught in the Folk Music Department at the Sibelius Academy, serving as a lecturer since 2014.
Pekka Pitkänen
Pekka Pitkänen is a lighting and video designer and photographic artist. He earned an MA in Theatre from the Theatre Academy in 2001 and is currently studying photographic art at Turku University of Applied Sciences. Since 1996 he has worked as a lighting, spatial and video designer in numerous dance, theatre and performance art productions.
He has collaborated with a wide range of artists, companies and institutions, including Arja Raatikainen, Liisa Risu, Jenni Kivelä & Kind People Association, Simo Kellokumpu, Saana Lavaste, Finnish National Theatre, Vaasa City Theatre, Tampere Workers’ Theatre, Katve [blind spot], Heidi Masalin, Tanja Illukka, Pirkko Kurikka, Joensuu Free Theatre, Janne Saarakkala, Reality Research Center, Pilvi Porkola, Oblivia, Zodiak, Maija Hirvanen, Stoa, Dance Theatre Hurjaruuth, Prison Theatre, Ninu Lindfors, Marjo Kuusela, Lilla Villan, Salla Leino, Minna Harjuniemi, Max Bremer, Paula Koivunen, Veera Laakso, Universum, Off/Balance, Teemu Kyytinen, Elina Häyrynen, Terhi Kuokkanen, Finnish National Gallery, Kiasma Theatre, Salla Salin, Pia Karaspuro, Sibylla Klein, Juha Valkeapää, Kolina van den Berg, Titta Halinen, Raija-Sinikka Rantala, Emma Puikkonen, Tehdas Theatre, Anna-Maria Vairio, Jenni Koistinen, and most recently Ismo-Pekka Heikinheimo and Ismo Dance Company.
Pitkänen’s works often address themes of the abandoned, the leftover, the forgotten and the obscure.
Simon le Roux
Simon le Roux is a South African architect, researcher, consultant and set designer known for innovative and sustainable practices in both architecture and stage design. His work emphasizes creative visual expression and openness to multiple art forms. He received an artist grant in architecture from the Arts Promotion Centre Finland for 2025.
Le Roux has worked as a set designer and architectural consultant in contemporary dance and dance theatre in collaboration with choreographers and lighting, sound and media designers, at venues including Zodiak, Kiasma, Ateneum and Helsinki Festival.
He has designed sets for choreographer Ismo-Pekka Heikinheimo—recipient of the Kordelin Foundation’s major art prize—since 1995, as well as for Professor of Dance Art Kirsi Monni (2006) and Artist Professor Arja Raatikainen (2002).
A 1999 Helsingin Sanomat review of the piece ToF wrote: “The set alone is a spectacle! Simon Le Roux has built a two-storey, rotating house with rooms on the stage at Stoa.”
Le Roux first graduated in architecture from the University of Cape Town in 1994 and later completed a Finnish degree in architecture at what is now Aalto University in 2005.
Introduction
Feel the power of movement, connection and vitality as interpreted by seven dazzling dancers! A passion for precise movement language, the pursuit of a creative state and the search for an enthusiastic spirit lie at the heart of award-winning choreographer Ismo-Pekka Heikinheimo’s new work. Heikinheimo creates strongly visual, physically intense contemporary dance, merging carefully constructed movement, spatial thinking and existential themes.
The live music is composed by Jouko Kyhälä, a multi-instrumentalist who moves effortlessly from folk music to experimental electronic sound art, combining tradition, improvisation and creative madness into a distinctive sound world. The striking set design is by South African Simon le Roux. His and lighting designer Pekka Pitkänen’s second collaboration creates a stage where movement, light and material blend into one.
Pneuma is spirit or life force. Enthusiastikon refers to passion and inspiration. Dance reaches out from the inner world towards others – when words fall short, the body speaks.
The choreographer paints articulate movement with brushes of various size, with emotion guiding the dynamics of the hand. The movement shifts from delicate and meditative to intense and energetic, reflecting the diversity of our inner worlds.