Teo Ala-Ruona

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 the 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.