June 10-14, 2026 Helsinki, Finland
Join us for an unforgettable summer of Contact Improvisation in Helsinki, Finland! A special edition of Midnight Sun Festival brings Contact Improvisation into the city — dancing in studios and beyond, also in shared urban space.
Experience the magic of movement, connection, and urban nature under the gentle glow of the Nordic summer nights. Contact Improvisation intensives, extensive jams, soul-nurturing additional program, and a community that welcomes you with open hearts!
Let's dance in the magic of the midnight sun!
WHAT IS DIFFERENT THIS YEAR - URBAN EDITION
Now in its third year, Midnight Sun Contact Impro Festival honors the core values of contact improvisation — deep listening, embodied dialogue, and collective exploration. These values are transmitted through intensive practice and classes guided by long-established, internationally recognized teachers, supporting both rigor and curiosity in the ongoing evolution of the form.
This year, the festival expands also beyond the studio and into the city itself.
Urban Edition brings contact improvisation into public space, asking:
Who owns the movement of the city? Who holds its sound and fleeting encounters? To whom does public space belong?
Bringing together three distinct movement practices unfolding in urban space, the festival gathers around a shared inquiry inspired by the idea of the "Right to the City" (Henri Lefebvre). Set in Helsinki's seaside neighborhoods — Eiranranta, Punavuori, and Kaivopuisto — the program unfolds in playful, site-responsive dialogue with architecture, local life, and layered histories. Urban Summer becomes a practice of presence — a gentle yet radical reimagining of how we inhabit the city together.
Our community welcomes you warmly
With over two decades of dedicated practice, the Finnish CI-community brings forth a unique depth of skill and a warmly vibrant spirit. The internationally acknowledged teachers from Finland are sharing their knowledge and inspiration in the daily intensives and afternoon classes.
Apart from the intensives and afternoon classes, our festival is focused also on daily extensive jams and soul nurturing additional program.
Our intention is to create a festival experience that will not only bring you new inspiration and insights to your CI practice, but also be the warmest, sweetest, most nurturing and memorable experience!
THE REGISTRATION IS OPEN
What people say about the festival?
"The atmosphere at the festival felt very welcoming and safe, at the same time the crowd was really amazing, very high level but also very friendly.
"Impeccable organisation, great teaching, amazing jams. Well done! And thank you so much for offering and carrying this space full of openness and kindness."
2026 TEACHERS
We're proud to present an incredible lineup of talented teachers who will guide you through this journey:
MIRVA MÄKINEN
PIA LINDY
MATTI HAAPONIEMI
LAURI JÄNTTI
IIRIS RAIPALA
SAKARI SAVOLA (MUSICIAN)
AND MORE
DANCING IN STUDIOS AND BEYOND -
A BOLD DIVE INTO URBAN CONTACT IMPROVISATION, COMMUNITY, AND CREATIVE EXPLORATION.
Our teachers come from diverse backgrounds and bring with them extensive experience in Contact Improvisation. Together, they offer unique perspectives, inviting you to explore, grow, and experience CI on new levels.
INTENSIVE TEACHER 2026
MIRVA MÄKINEN
Mirva Mäkinen is a Finnish dance artist, contact improvisation teacher, choreographer, and pedagogue. She holds a Doctorate in Dance from the University of the Arts Helsinki (2018), where her research focused on the somaesthetics of contact improvisation. Her work explores flow, kinetic energy, and the embodied dynamics of movement, integrating artistic practice with pedagogy.
Mäkinen has taught internationally for over 25 years, working with institutions such as the University of the Arts Helsinki and Cullberg Ballet in Sweden. She has performed and collaborated widely across the contemporary dance field in more than 40 countries.
Inner Landscape
Inner Landscape is an immersive contact improvisation workshop guided by Mirva Mäkinen, inviting participants to explore the rich terrain of their inner world through movement, touch, and presence. Rooted in the principles of contact improvisation, the workshop emphasizes listening—both to oneself and to others—as a pathway to authentic expression.
Through guided exercises, improvisational scores, and shared explorations, participants are encouraged to tune into sensation, weight, breath, and subtle impulses. The practice opens space for curiosity and play, while also fostering trust, responsiveness, and embodied awareness. Attention is given to how internal states—emotions, memories, and imagery—can inform and shape movement, creating a dialogue between the inner and outer landscapes.
Whether you are new to contact improvisation or an experienced practitioner, the workshop provides tools to deepen connection, expand physical vocabulary, and cultivate a more nuanced relationship to self and others. Come as you are, and step into a shared space of discovery, where movement becomes a way of sensing, relating, and unfolding the unseen.
FESTIVAL POSTWORKSHOP
with MIRVA MÄKINEN
16.-18.6. Helsinki
Three days intensive CI workshop with Mirva - More information coming soon!
AFTERNOON TEACHERS 2026
PIA LINDY
Pia Lindy (FI) (performer/dancer/writer) has worked on solo and group works as well as collaborative projects with different artists, other professionals, and people both in Finland and abroad. She graduated from Amsterdam's School for New Dance Development in 1995. Her working, facilitating, and performance practices are based on improvisation and experiential, process-oriented approaches, and take place in various environments and contexts.
Her work also draws from sociological and societal thinking, as well as from a long-term engagement with somatic movement practices. Her first encounter with Contact Improvisation was in the late 1980s. Contact Improvisation played a significant role in her training as a professional dancer and artist, and has continued to influence her dance teaching over the following decades. CI echoes in many ways in both her artistic work and movement practice.
In recent years, Pia has been involved in an ongoing art project called Tracing Suburbia, in which she has facilitated environmental dance workshops in the suburbs of East Helsinki. In the Tracing Suburbia project, the focus is on experientiality, movement, and environmental awareness. The background of this work lies in her interest in exploring, discovering, creating, and experimenting with different ways of presenting and sharing contemporary dance and artistic movement practices outside traditional stage contexts and major city centres.
How Does the City Touch Me -Diving into the layers of landscapes
(a 2-hour workshop in Eira-Punavuori)
What kind of skills the CI-practice provides us for tuning into different layers of an urban environment and public space. How to listen to, explore or finetune some of those skills in an urban environment in a site responsive way. We will take a small journey in the neighbourhood to dance with a focus on micro-level adjustments to the sense of deep time or to growing in the awareness of others, living or non-living, sharing the same space. We will first work more as individual explorers and towards the end there will be dancing together to share some of your findings. The last section can also be taken as an opportunity to notice how the diving into the urban landscape influences you and your moving, and how it is perhaps present and still resonating when dancing together.
LAURI JÄNTTI
Lauri Jäntti is a Helsinki-based urban dancer, activist, and human geographer. His work across different fields draws inspiration from non-representational geographical thinking and participatory experimentation.
Katulavatanssit (a 2-hour workshop in Eira-Punavuori)
Katulavatanssit is an open, improvisation-based dance research laboratory moving with and through public urban sites as ongoing spacing. Participants are invited to explore how movement and (human) subjectivities co-emerge through affective encounters, as urban reality materializes in and through the dance.
MATTI HAAPONIEMI
Matti Haaponiemi is a dance artist based in Tampere. He has been practicing contact improvisation since 2012. His teaching emphasizes safe and healthy practice, fun, relaxation, and playfulness. Haaponiemi’s contact improvisation practice is strongly rooted in his ongoing study of aikido, from which he has adopted the importance of center and central line, softness, clear directions, and precision in guiding through touch.
In class, the focus is on exploring the body’s connections and support structures, which create an invisible yet kinesthetically perceivable landscape for shared dance. This idea of a landscape of structures is expanded from the duet to the entire space, and practice includes ways of incorporating the surrounding environment into one’s own dance.
IIRIS RAIPALA
Iiris Raipala is dance artist, performer and teacher based in Helsinki. She graduated in 2004 as Master of Arts in dance from the Theatre Academy of Finland. She also has Master in Art Pedagogy. She been working closely with improvisation and contact improvisation in several performing groups and has performed in the choreographies of many internationally acknowledged choreographers like Tomi Paasonen, Rosalind Crisp, Mirva Mäkinen, Lisa Nelson and Nancy Stark Smith. She is part of artistic-scientific Liminal Art -collective working in the field of improvisation and ritual art. (www.liminalart.fi). She has been practicing, teaching and performing CI for over 25 years.
At Home — inhabiting body, contact and city
This workshop explores what it means to feel at home in movement, in relationship and in the spaces we inhabit. Inspired by the anthropologist Tim Ingold and his idea of dwelling, we approach contact improvisation as a practice of inhabiting: learning to live more fully inside our bodies, our relationships and our environments.
We begin with being at home in the body. Through somatic awareness, gravity and attentive movement we explore how to arrive more fully into our own tissues, bones and skin — allowing the body to become a place we truly inhabit. Rather than moving the body as an object, we sense what it means to live inside it.
From there we enter being at home in contact. In contact improvisation, home can emerge between bodies. Through yielding, leaning, supporting and sharing weight we explore how trust, listening and gravity allow a moving "home" to arise in relationship. Together we investigate how surrender and support create a shared ground for improvisation.
The exploration expands further into being at home as a group. Through collective attunement, rhythm and spatial awareness the group can generate a supportive field where belonging becomes palpable. Within this shared space each person can remain fully themselves while participating in a larger, living choreography.
Finally, we extend the exploration into our relationship with the city and public space. What happens when we approach urban space as something to inhabit rather than merely pass through?
Here the notion of hospitality becomes important: the ability to gently invite others into our space while also entering the spaces of others with respect and care. Public space is a shared habitat — not only for humans but for many forms of life.
Through contact improvisation we explore how home can emerge in motion: within the body, between bodies, within the group and in our relationship with the living world around us.
..
SAIJA SARELL
Saija discovered Contact Improvisation over a decade ago, and what began as curiosity has grown into a long-standing relationship with movement as a way of listening, relating, and understanding both self and others.
She brings elements from her background as a yoga and AcroYoga teacher into her approach, combining awareness, presence, and physical intelligence with the relational depth of Contact Improvisation.
CI remains closest to her heart. She is drawn to its subtlety: the quiet negotiations of weight, the intelligence of touch, and the continuous dialogue between structure and surrender.
Based in Helsinki, Saija has been an active part of the Finnish CI scene for years — as a dancer, community builder, and festival organizer. Her work focuses on creating spaces that feel grounded, safe, and alive, where people can explore connection, presence, and expression without performance pressure.
With a background in holistic well-being, Saija approaches CI not only as a dance form, but as a practice of attunement, nourishment, and human connection.
Tea Ceremony
The tea ceremony is a simple, meditative space within the festival.
Chajins (tea practitioner(s) serve selected teas in silence. You are welcome to receive tea or simply sit, rest, and be
It's an invitation to slow down, to notice, and to return to the present moment, while enjoying a fine cup of tea.
What people say about the festival?
"Being at the festival feels like a warm reunion with the most wonderful family"
"I enjoyed the people I met, and that it both was a lot of time for dancing, but also for hanging out with each other. I liked the sharing circles, that we had a body work workshop + jams every evening. Perfect lenght of the jams for me. People were kind and I liked that it rained."
"The ability to dance CI for many hours in an intentional jam where people are highly involved and with intentional teachers during the day. The constant feeling of CI that you get to rest in your body as the days are focused on dance and somatic (touch)."
Additional program
The Midnight Sun CI Festival isn't just about dance—it's about creating a full, rich experience and fostering a sense of togetherness and community. Our additional program is open to everyone and entirely optional, offering a warm invitation to join as much or as little as you wish. These shared moments bring balance and connection to the dance-filled days.
Ci talks: Dive into engaging conversations about the art of Contact Improvisation. Share your insights, explore questions, and draw inspiration from the collective wisdom of the community.
Mantra Circles: Sing together and feel the joy of shared sound, (led by Tea Ihalainen HighwaytoBliss Mantras)
Bodywork: Rejuvenate and find ease in your body after dance-filled days with guided sessions designed to restore and refresh.
Tea Ceremony sitting in silence with tea, exploring the small dance in the cup
Sharing Circles Daily sharing circles offer a space for connection within small home groups. Take a moment to reflect, share, and feel supported in a nurturing and open environment
These simple yet meaningful activities make space for connection, reflection, and relaxation, bringing another layer of depth to your festival journey.
Meet the organizers of the Midnight Sun CI Festival Finland!
Hi! We're Iiris, Tea and Saija !
Passionate CI-dancers, close friends and active members of the big and loving CI-community of Finland! We're super excited to bring our knowledge and passion about CI, dance, art, event organisation and community building together to create a memorable festival together with all the teachers and participants.
We've each been dancing for 10 – 20 years and find the CI community the truest "home". So we're inviting all of you to that cozy "home" of improvisation, movement, connection, dance, joy and healing that the practice brings. We're delighted to organize the event in the beautiful venue Hub Feenix, in the heart of the beautiful Finnish summer.
We can't wait to dance with all of you and spend a magical moments under the Midsummer Sun!
Join Us to Dance Under the Midnight Sun — Urban Edition
Festival fee: €194 (incl. VAT 13.5%)
Includes the full festival program from 10–14 June 2026.
Please note that food and accommodation are not included in the ticket.
You're free to organize these in a way that suits you best.
We'll share relaxed lunch breaks together at the nearby Eira beach, you can also bring your own food to the studio or explore the many cozy cafés and restaurants in the area.
REGISTRATION IS OPEN!
Contact us
Have questions or need more information?
Feel free to reach out!
Follow us on Instagram and Facebook
@midnightsunci
for updates, sneak peeks, and to connect with the community!
midnightsunci@gmail.com
We can't wait to dance with you!
With ❤️
The Midnight Sun CI Festival Team:
Iiris, Tea & Saija
Photos: Johanna Kaisjoki, Jussi Vierimaa