Studio Sharing: Damnat [Work-in-progress]

Bodymorphosis by Teo Ala-Ruona

Presented in Partnership with Abrons Arts Center and the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York

Tuesday, December 15, 2026
4:30 PM
466 Grand Street
New York, NY 10002

Facilitated by Teo Ala-Ruona as part of his Triangle Arts residency, this workshop invites participants to explore the imaginative power of the body.

Through a series of exercises, we imagine the dissolution of the body's boundaries and opening up new sensory modes of being with the flesh and the mind. We explore internal psychophysical transformations, from which different forms of movement begin to emerge. We dance through imaginary landscapes, and the melting of social masks.

Teo Ala-Ruona is a Helsinki-based performance artist, working across dance, choreography, contemporary theatre, and visual arts. Rooted in embodied practicing and theory, his art seeks embodied metaphysical transformation on somatic, psychic and social registers. In his work, trans embodiment operates as a conceptual framework through which he critically examines societal conceptions of the body. He uses the performing body as a site of re-negotiating pregiven categories, and explores how alternative stage realities can challenge normative understandings of bodily limits. Ala-Ruona works with deep performer’s craft and carefully crafted audience engagement. He celebrates the absurd, the transgressive and the impure in his work and life.

Teo Ala-Ruona’s residency occurs in partnership with the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York and the Finnish Cultural Foundation.