Good Life Engine: Listen to your body

In a hectic and performance-oriented world, it’s important to listen to your mind and body. In Butoh, a dance style that started in Japan after the Second World War, movements are guided by natural elements and mental images. In class, dancers do not practice ready-made movement patterns but progress with safe exercises, listening to the body’s current state of being.

In this last GLE open session of this academic year, you get to try out Butoh and learn for yourself what your body is telling you to do. The class is suitable for everyone, and no previous dance experience is necessary.

We’re taught by Minja Mertanen, a Helsinki-based dancer and live artist. She has graduated as a dance teacher, dance and movement therapist, and yoga instructor and has been teaching Butoh for over 17 years. In the past years, Minja has been teaching Butoh at the Finnish Theater Academy and working actively in the field of live art in Finland. She is one of the Helsinki Butoh festival’s artistic leaders and also performs at festivals around the world.

For the rest of the session, we’ll shift the focus to our students and wrap up the course for this spring with final presentations. You’ll learn about different topics of self-development from our students, who have just tried out the methods themselves and figured out what works best for them. Join us to hear how they’ve applied the topics in their daily lives and why they’ve been helpful, and get some tips on getting started with your own journey.