After many years of intensive dance practice found Contact improvisation in 2003 and fell in love immediately. Since then, he has been intensively practicing and studying CI mostly within the lovely Helsinki contact community where he has been an active participant e.g. by being one of the regular organizers of Skiing on Skin – the Finnish Contact festival. Panu has also been intensively practicing Pilates and Capoeira for more than 10 years. During last years, he has involved again circus scene where he’s biggest interest lies on aerial acrobatics. During daytime he works as university lecturer and in the evenings as Pilates and movement teacher. He has an analytical approach to movement but respects also the non-analytical flow of movement and life as well.

Extending in and out

Extending-in and out in particular from the center has great potential in dance, which is being explored in this class. Extension-out usually has a clear direction and therefore it can be used to lighten, smooth and clarify certain directions within the movement and dance. In contrast, extension-in

supports the change of directions in an easy way. In this class we study the possibilities and qualities of extensions in detail and try to study and play. For example, asking the following questions: what is the role of the opposite
direction of an extension? What is an extension to a rotation? What is the magic of a straight angle in extension? Is it possible to extend in and out at the same time? Can you extend in multiple directions simultaneously? How do all these play together?