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Dance Legacy Reset Camp 


Dance Legacy Reset Camp – Deeds and discussions about the postmodern dance tradition and its future


Dance Legacy Reset Camp is a week-long event that brings contemporary dance to the new Konepaja stage in Helsinki. The international programme will recall, question, remix and reframe the history of contemporary dance through performances, workshops and discussions. Built on the ethos of a camp-like process of doing and experiencing together, the event brings together dance artists from different generations and offers programme for both professionals and general audiences. The event is part of Liisa Pentti’s 40th anniversary as an artist.


TUESDAY 14 APRIL

10.00–13.00 Peter Pleyer’s Master Class (full)
At Liisa Pentti +Co Studio.

17.30–17.45 Liisa Pentti: Opening
Free entry

17.45–18.30 Keynote by Kirsi Monni: Some remarks on the (hidden?) legacies of the postmodern in contemporary dance
Free entry

What are those features and innovations that the postmodern in dance brought forth, and how are they resonating today, if at all? And what were those art theoretical debates and philosophical discourses that surrounded and enabled these innovations? How do the traces of postmodern thoughts in dance surface today or have they been buried under the developmental steps of dance history?

19.00–20.30 Bardo Ensemble: Förlösa
Tickets €28–12
Yvonne Rainer, a 90-year-old choreographer from San Francisco, and Audhumbla, the mythical cow from ancient times, are lying in a maternity ward. Yvonne, who has given birth to new dance forms but never a child, and Audhumbla, who created the world’s first god by licking a stone, lie in the same ward, heavily pregnant and about to give birth. But what is it that’s about to be born?

In Förlösa, Bardo Ensemble invites the audience to philosophise and fantasise about birth in an absurd and playful way. When and how did we come into being? Does the soul exist, and if so, what is it?

Age recommendation: 15+
Language: Swedish

Read more about the performance here.
20.30–21.00 Artist talk (Förlösa)
Free entry


WEDNESDAY 15 APRIL

10.00–13.00 Peter Pleyer’s Master Class (full)
At Liisa Pentti +Co Studio.

18.00–19.00 Silke Z. & Liisa Pentti: The Ageing Body Pro Series #1
 Tickets €28–12
The Ageing Body Pro Series #1 is the first part in a series of dance performances dedicated to the professional challenges and particularities of female freelance dance artists in the context of ageing.

In dialogue with choreographer Silke Z., Liisa Pentti confronts her artistic identity and the process of ageing on stage. Together they reflect on their past and present experiences, such as the need to balance artistic autonomy with earning a living as well as the physical demands and the role they play in the ageing process.

Using dance techniques to approach their questions from biographical and social perspectives, Silke and Liisa ask: Which experiences in their professional careers have been or continue to be formative? What power relations have they experienced, helped shape, endured and dismantled as women? What role does ageing play in this?

The Ageing Body Pro Series brings active professional female dancers, aged over 60 and from a variety of nationalities and dance backgrounds, to the stage, highlighting their journeys and histories and providing the audience with an accessible insight into dance creation processes.

Read more about the performance here.

19.00–20.00 Artist talk (The Ageing Body Pro Series #1)
Free entry


THURSDAY 16 APRIL

10.00–13.00 Peter Pleyer’s Master Class (full)
At Liisa Pentti +Co Studio.

18.00–19.00 Elina Pirinen, Tom Rejström & Jenni-Elina von Bagh: Quattro Stagioni
 Tickets €28–12
Quattro Stagioni is a four-part theatrical pizza baked by dance artist Elina Pirinen, theatre artist Tom Rejström and dance artist Jenni-Elina von Bagh. It brings together vivacious and refined flavors, the troubling swings of the seasons, pastoral farce, family and nature relations, neoclassism and old modernism, ruthless composition, cheeky characterisations, overflowing speech and austere attitudes, grand beautiful dance, a character named Spring, the rhythm and dislocation of four-part form, the empty pockets of Granny and Grandpa, summer wind, and the craft of expression.

Each author signs a slice of the pizza, haphazardly mashing their creative desires into the Vivaldian cycle. The agony of creation helps with the agony of the world. One season is dedicated to 14-year-old Olavi von Bagh and his vision. As these four artists collect their thoughts, knowledge, visions, experiences, practices and politics, and as deeply intertwined artistic currents and chemistries merge with a topographical quadruple perspective, a new, impossible mutation is born. At Stage Konepaja lives a shared dream of the four seasons – something for everyone and nothing for no one.

Language: English, Finnish, Italian

Read more about the performance here.

FRIDAY 17 APRIL

10.00–13.00 Peter Pleyer’s Master Class (full)
At Liisa Pentti +Co Studio.

15.00–20.00 Post-Postmodern Open Stage
 Free entry

The programme will be published later.


SATURDAY 18 APRIL

15.00–15.45 Artist talk (Quattro Stagioni)
 Free entry

16.00–17.15 Peter Pleyer & working group: VIEW.POINT.MARY (demo)
Tickets €10 / €6


Twelve performing arts professionals have been working for four days on the theory and practice of Mary Overlie's SIX VIEWPOINTS method. Under the direction of Berlin-based choreographer Peter Pleyer, these artists will present a unique demo version of VIEW.POINT.MARY, a piece by Cranky Bodies a/company that premiered at Berlin's DOCK 11 in November 2024.

In this version of VIEW.POINT.MARY we celebrate the work of Mary Overlie, an original anarchist of postmodern dance. In an installative performance, the dancers articulate her SIX VIEWPOINTS (Space, Shape, Time, Movement, Emotion/Presence and Story/Logic) in various ways. Different floor patterns and spaces are created and filled with solos, duos, and group scores. Her legendary horizontal laboratory, where all the SIX VIEWPOINTS are explored with even value, is created in the landscape of Stage Konepaja.

Language: non-verbal, introduction in English

Performers: TBC
Director and course leader: Peter Pleyer

17.15–18.45 Artist talk (VIEW.POINT.MARY)
 Free entry

18.45– Postmodern postparty 
 Free entry



Photo: Monika Bodendorfaité / Kobra Agency