Eeva-Maria

 

is a performer, installation maker and community dance leader currently based in Bristol, UK. She grew up on the Arctic Circle, Finland, but has lived in the UK since the age of 17.

She trained initially at London Academy of Movement and Dramatic Art 1989-92, and has since been collaborating & performing internationally in dance theatre & film, site specific works, cross art form improvisations, cinema and TV in the UK and Finland.

 

She has trained and apprenticed with numerous choreographers & directors including Gaby Agis (SRT), Miranda Tufnell ( Body Space Image), Andrea Olsen (Body and Earth) and Tetsuro Fukuhara (New Butoh). Since 2020 she has been making embodied visual art whilst being mentored by artist elders like Chris Crickmay and her work endorsed by David Ward (UK) and Rosalyn Driscoll (US).

 

Over three decades+ some of the highlights of her career include:

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Artist-maker-performer in

- Putting Our House In Order, Shared Habitat collaborative exhibition with performances; Goldhahn, McInerney, Mutka & Young, Birchwood House Gallery, Totnes, (Jan/Feb 2025)

- 1 month residency at Jamaica Street Studios + Open Studios event, Bristol(Aug & Sept ‘25)

- Selected to be member of New Platform Art cohort 2025-26.

- 1 week residency at The Launderette gallery Bristol, what’s in a river, passing (Apr 7-14th 2025)

- Collaboration with artist Helen Acklam in clay at The Laundrette gallery (Feb 2025)

- Collaboration with artist Vera Boele-Keimer in Crossing the line/and back, exhibition with live performances at SVA Gallery Stroud (Aug 2024),

- Installation/performance Transience of Forms Northampton Center for the Arts, US (June 2024)

- Mrs Perfume performs... a new opera in voice, movement and visual art, made in collaboration with company kissküss/Anthony Haddon, Bristol (2024) and Psychonaut Scratch London (2025)

- Collaboration with poet Jonathan Edwards, a National Dance Company Wales/Literature Wales commissioned short film PaperRoll – Homage to Jack Kerouac as part of Plethu (2021)

- ACWales -funded Shimmer (2020) - physical dialogues between form and movement,

- Groundwork Pro Wales/ACW -funded: Seeds series of video studies for online viewing (2020)

 

Performer and co-creator in works by significant artists in the UK & US: including

- Y Llyn -The Lake,15 date tour by BANDO throughout Wales, (Sept 24-Feb 25)

- Scotty Hardwig & Andrea Olsen Matkalla (2022) - 6 Best Short Dance Film awards globally

- Miranda Tufnell/Sylvia Hallett/David Ward Pneuma 9 year Project, Oxford, Cardigan, Leeds, sites in Northumberland (2013-2021)

- Traces of Tissues, performer in Betwixt Somatic Costume and Dance performance at PQ Site Specific Performance Festival in Prague (2019)

- Florence Peake & Jonathan Baldock Apparition of the Phantom Limbs Experimentica, Cardiff (2014)

- NORTH -Hidden Behind the Darkness with Gaby Agis & Titta Court: Research trips to Arctic Canada and Lapland 2013 – 2020. Performances in Trinity St. Davids Wales and Kirkenes Museum.

- Jo Fong Witness Portraits of Women Who Dance three screen film installation (2012-)

- Jo Shapland Dance for Neanderthal, Wales Millenium Centre (2010)

- Gaby Agis Close Streams Turner Margate (2016) & Leap (2018) and Explicit Faith at LSO (2004)

- Tetsuro Fukuhara Affinity - Space Dance East Winds Festival of New Butoh, Chisenhale (1995) followed by annual performances in the UK + Lisa Ullman scholarship funded study in Japan 1998

- TV & film work including roles in Lovejoy and Taggart, several poetry/story programmes for YLE Children’s & Young People’s Channel, WSOY Audiobooks and Anssi Manttari feature Mestari

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Featured in books and online resources:

2 books by Andrea Olsen and Caryn McHose: The Place of Dance & Moving Between Worlds, + interactive learning resource www.body-earth.org

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Producing artists’ residencies, an international education programme Body, Movement, Environment & this is somatic at Penpynfarch Wales over 18 years, 2003-2020.

 

E-M has developed a sustained community arts practice with groups in the areas of Arts & Health and Creative Dance:

She has qualifications to deliver the Touch Trust programme and the Youth Mindfulness 8 week programme. Drawing on all her experience she has created and led projects with people of all ages and abilities, including Creative Dance with children, parent & child Movement Play, young people with disabilities, adults with learning disabilities, and the elderly in care home & day club settings, most recently as part of the Bristol based Alive Charity. E-M has lead weekly sessions for Stroke Association Wales (2020-21) and assisted Rosetta Life in projects to do with Vision Loss & Proprioception after Stroke (2021) and Heart of Care with Bristol Black Carers (2022-23).

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Eeva feels passionately about the importance of sensory experiences and creative opportunities for all, for learning, health and happiness. Sustainability education starts with ourselves, our own bodies.

Currently E-M works 3 days a week at Little Foxes Forest Preschool, Bristol.

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