Audience Club — Relaxed

For the third time, Moving in November invites curious audience members to join Audience Club — a space for collective reflection on performances. The club offers a safe and bold environment to delve deeper into the experience of watching performances, articulate thoughts and feelings, ask bold questions, and learn more about contemporary dance and performance.

As always, Audience Club is a place to explore dance and contemporary theatre through creative tasks, facilitated discussions, and a guided journey through the festival. This year, however, Audience Club returns in a relaxed version, offering a space to reconnect with our bodies and feelings amid the festival.

What is Audience Club?

A guided group of approx. 10 participants, led by dance researcher Anna Kozonina, who together will:

  • Attend festival’s performances
  • Explore dance through exercises, discussion tasks, mini-lectures, and other learning formats, and exchange perspectives
  • Learn to connect immediate reactions to performances with personal and social values and expectations, making the experience of going to the theatre more meaningful and fun
  • Discuss performances in enjoyable, engaging, and thought-provoking ways

Audience Club helps you connect dance to personal and social experiences while building confidence in expressing your perspective.

2026 Audience Club Focus

Soft Attention: Staying With Performance 

What happens in your body while you watch a performance? And what happens in your mind? Or in your heart? Sometimes they seem to agree — and sometimes they don’t. You might feel moved by something you cannot explain, or find yourself thinking that you liked a piece even though your body was restless, bored, or uncomfortable.

In the 2026 edition of Audience Club, we’ll explore ways to stay with different dimensions of our audience experiences. We’ll look at how our bodily reactions and our thinking work together when we experience art. Rather than choosing between “feeling” and “thinking”, we’ll explore how those different dimensions can inform, challenge, and sometimes contradict each other.

Throughout the festival, we’ll ask:

  • What happens to our bodies when we watch a performance?
  • How can we notice and describe what we feel before we have an opinion about it?
  • How do bodily sensations become thoughts, interpretations, and judgements?
  • What makes a performance speak to our bodies, emotions, or minds?
  • How do the choices and structure of a piece shape the way we experience it?

Each performance will be a starting point for conversation and exploration through simple creative exercises and different ways of sharing what we noticed. Together, we’ll practice moving between sensation and thought — paying attention to what our bodies tell us, and finding words for it.

Who is it for?

The Club is welcoming dance, theatre and art lovers of all ages over 18 years old. Professional dancers and choreographers, artists, cultural managers and people with no previous background in performing arts, are welcome to take part as well.

Schedule

Session 1. Thursday 5.11
17:00 WELCOMING SESSION:  Getting to know each other through words, observations and little moves
19:00 SHOW: Mélanie Demers – Confession Publique
21:30 KARAOKE SHOW: Chen Amor Nadler & Kadence Luella Neill – local guest local ghost

Session 2. Saturday 7.11
16:00 SHOW: Lesbian Power Duo – Heart of the Ocean
17:00 AUDIENCE CLUB SESSION: Body parts speaking + Anticipation session
19:00 SHOW: Katerina Andreou & Mélissa Guex –SHOUT TWICE

Session 3. Sunday 8.11
13:30 QUICK MEETUP: Audience Club goes on a mission
14:00 SHOW+PRACTICE: Veli Lehtovaara –The Pier ~ An Amphibious Dance Deck
16:00 SHOW: Mikko Niemistö – The Tormentor
17:30 AUDIENCE CLUB DINNER AND DISCUSSION: Processing the day through reflection questions

Session 4. Wednesday 11.11
12:00 SOUP TALK WITH BETTY TCHOMANGA
17:00 PRE-TALK: Dramaturgy workshop
18:00 SHOW: Betty Tchomanga – Decolonial (Hi)stories #Parallel Portraits

Session 5. Friday 13.11
Choreographic Convention – tbc

Session 6. Saturday 14.11
15:00 SHOW: Giorgia Lolli – BODY SWEATS (for Elsa)
16:00 DISCUSSION: Monologues and listening practice on the go
18:00 SHOW: Michael Turinsky – Precarious Moves

Session 7. Sunday 15.11
15:00 SHOW: Matilda Aaltonen – To follow your tail 
16:30 BIG WRAP UP: Reflections, affects, findings and outcomes
20:00 SHOW (ADD ON): Johanna Karlberg, Alen Nsambu & Antonia Atarah – Swedish Asshole feat. Akademiska Sångföreningen

How to take part?

To sign up, please fill in the Google Form by October 11th. You will receive instructions by email after registration on how to book your spot.

Anna Kozonina is a dance writer, researcher, and educator based in Helsinki. As well as obtaining an MA in Political Science and Linguistics, she studied dance history and performance theory and holds an arts MA from Aalto University. Since 2017 she has been reviewing pieces by emerging and established European choreographers, and diving into somatic discourses in contemporary dance, which she observes from critical and political perspectives. She currently gives lectures on dance and performance theories, curates educational programs, and conducts research projects. She collaborated with institutions and festivals across Europe including Norrlandsoperan, Impulstanz, Moving in November, Baltic and Nordic Dance Platforms, Rail2Dance, STHLM DANS, etc. She is also a regular contributor at Springback Magazine.

Anna’s website

Audience Club website