Zodiak – Center for New Dance – Dance the night and day away

L ocated at the Cable Factory cultural hub, overlooking the Baltic Sea, Zodiak – Center for New Dance has been creating unforgettable, captivating experiences for both locals of and visitors to Helsinki for over two decades now. Scan Magazine spoke to the pioneering dance centre’s artistic director, Harri Kuorelahti, about why their wide range of events and courses should be on any culture lover’s radar this year.

Working closely together with artists, communities and audiences, Zodiak is a key producer and venue for contemporary dance performances in Finland. Alongside its impressive slate of productions, the centre also actively engages in audience outreach and organises workshops and courses for anyone to participate in. “At Zodiak, you can do more than just watch – you can also experience dancing yourself,” says Kuorelahti.

Open to everyone, Zodiak is known for its daring approach to culture and for widening the appeal of today’s dance. All performances are also made with international audiences in mind. “Dance has a more poetic appeal to it than traditional theatre plays, and you don’t need to understand Finnish to enjoy it,” Kuorelahti continues. “If you want to experience tomorrow’s art and urban culture today, Zodiak is the place for you.”


Why not try one of these?


Soili Huhtakallio: For God

27 February to 6 March 2019, Zodiak Stage, Cable Factory, Helsinki

Tickets: tiketti.fi

For God, created by up-and-coming choreographer Soili Huhtakallio and her work group, explores the construction of meaning and the experience of meaningfulness, while addressing the relationship between faith, dance and the female body.

Liisa Pentti +CO: Fragile eyes

19-30 March 2019, Zodiak Stage, Cable Factory, Helsinki

Tickets: tiketti.fi

Fragile Eyes by Liisa Pentti, based on The Laugh of the Medusa (1975) by the French philosopher and author Hélène Cixous, combines dance, text and music, navigating the borderlines between various performing arts in a dreamlike, immersive manner.

Liisa Risu – Mirva Mäkinen – Sonja Jokiniemi: Music+

16-17 April 2019, Stoa, Itäkeskus, Helsinki

Tickets: lippu.fi

Music+ is a collage-style, large-scale performance for 12 dancers of different generations, objects and space. On the macro level, Music+ is the playing of an instrument – and that instrument is spacetime.

Web: zodiak.fi/en

Facebook: zodiakhelsinki

Instagram: @zodiak_helsinki

Twitter: @zodiakhelsinki

zodiak.fi/en