10,000 Spins

The event requires a ticket that is available free of charge. Tickets will become available on Monday 16 November via this link (lippu.fi ↗), and at the service desk of Maunula Library. A small number of tickets are also set aside to be available at the door on the day of the event, and you can enquire about them at the venue half an hour before the event starts. Sweaty armpits, leg hairs sticking out, footwork, survival, performance, poses, enjoyment and shame, bodies merging, bodies colliding, non-stardom, non-success, back rows, front rows, the swaying of something self-made and familiar, the muffled sounds of dance shoes and endless spins. A warm caress directed towards a middle-aged dancing and performing body, a cheer for a history lived out in a changing body. 10,000 Spins is a collaborative work by dance artists Elina Hauta-aho and Kati Raatikainen that examines how social events from different eras, the power dynamics of dance cultures and notions of humanity are reflected in the body – and how movement can be used to dismantle, understand or reshape one’s relationship with their own position in society. The performance has an autobiographical perspective, and through the experiences of Hauta-aho and Raatikainen, it offers a broader picture of the phenomena of past decades, the politics of the body and social attitudes. 10,000 Spins is Hauta-aho and Raatikainen’s account of the past 20 years in their wonderful and awful profession, and an expression of gratitude for dance, which has been a way of life for both Hauta-aho and Raatikainen since childhood. The work is a tribute to physicality and what has been lived, experienced and imagined, as well as an expression of friendship, and a gesture of the parallel nature of lives and sharing. Choreography and dance: Elina Hauta-aho and Kati Raatikainen Sound design: Tuuli Kyttälä Lighting design: Katinka Ebbe Costume design: Jenni Räsänen Performance duration: roughly 1 h Performances: 2026 Maunula House, Helsinki; 2027 Museum of Women’s History, Umeå; tour of the Ostrobothnia region. Support: Kone Foundation, Art Promotion Centre Finland Residency period: Umeå, Sweden, Nordic regional (net)working (in collaboration with the Regional Dance Centre of Ostrobothnia, Dans i Västerbotten and Danscentrum Norr) Thanks to Humina ry and Vantaa Dance Institute