PORTFOLIO 

SONJIS LAINE

dancer, performer, anthropologist


Usva, as we evaporate (work in progress)


concept: Sonjis Laine
Working group / performance: Sonjis Laine, Tuuli Vahtola, Vane Virta
Support: Suomen Kulttuurirahasto, Old Mine Residency, Bioarts Society, SíM residency










Hyökkäämisen ja puolustautumisen strategiat 2023


Choreography: Sari Palmgren & working group
Performance: Sonjis Laine, Sara Grotenfelt, Sari Palmgren

Sound design: Jonas Pehrsson
Light design: Topias Toppinen
Costume design: Jenni Räsänen
Production: Routa Company

Premiere 13.10.2023, Generaattori, Kajaani






Self care platinum (demo) 2023


Concept & performance Silja Eriksson
8/2023, Esitysteltta, Helsinki







Still pouring from the soft spot 2021-2023

Performance-installation on porousness, sensitive matters and emotional labour
Concept & Installation: Sonjis Laine & Veera Nivalainen
Sound: Olli Lautiola

5/2023, Asbestos Art Space, Helsinki
11/2021, Ateneum, Helsinki. UrbanApa X Ateneum
Supported by: Taike (Arts Promotion Centre Finland), Kekäläinen&Co., Live Art Society, City of Helsinki






how blank ; solo series 

project website


Concept & Coaching: Deborah Hay
Dance: Sonjis Laine

# 4. 5/22, Arabia Street Festival, Helsinki.


# 2. 8/2018, Talvipuutarha, Helsinki




Kehollisuuden, ajattelun ja henkilöyden muotoutumista tanssijalähtöisessä kielessä”
Liikekieli 2023 (link)


“- [pyrin] kuvailemaan ajattelun, mielen, kielen ja toimijuuden kokemisen tapoja nykytanssijuuden viitekehyksessä, erityisesti kehollisina ilmiöinä, tietona ja tuntemuksina. Samalla tarkastelin sitä, miten nämä kokemukset rakentavat minuuden, itseyden ja henkilöyden artikulaatioita. Pyrkimyksenä ei ollut rakentaa sosiaalisen teorian kulmakiveä tai yleistyksiä kaikkien kokemuksesta vaan ymmärtää sitä, mitä kielelliset rakenteet ja kielenkäyttö ehdottavat taidetyössä, jota kuvataan usein toisaalta esi-kielelliseksi, tai toisaalta universaaliksi kieleksi.”







Dancing in multiple bodyminds: Making sense of experience, mind, body and the self through strategies of embodiment in contemporary dance

University of Helsinki 2022 (link)


This thesis focuses on the understandings of the body among contemporary dancers in the western post-modern scene. In doing so, it aims to describe the ways contemporary dancers experience thinking, mind language and agency in their bodies. Further, the aim of this thesis is to understand how this affects experiences of self and being. Examining ethnographical examples and the discussions on the body-mind relations, this thesis endeavours to further the understanding of experienced relationships between body, mind and thinking in the West. Additionally it looks at the ways through which embodied knowledge is produced, shared, and evaluated among contemporary dancers. As such, it takes a critical stance towards dualistic notions of mind and body; rational and sensed; culture and nature.

In this thesis, contemporary dancers are approached as a professional category.The ethnographic data was gathered during a two and a half month fieldwork period in Berlin in the summer 2021. The fieldwork comprised of participant observation in rehearsals, festivals, workshops and weekly professional dance classes, supplemented by seven semi-structured interviews with contemporary dance artists. The field notes and interviews were accompanied by auto-ethnographic description. Further, importance for the authotrs own bodily experience and understanding was granted in building analytical understanding


The theoretical framework of this thesis draws from phenomenology, discussions of body and mind, and theories of personhood. Phenomenological discussions and theories of bodily practice and sensorial anthropology are used to examine how information is embodied in dance practices, and how the idea of embodied knowledge is constructed and shared. The ethnographical evidence suggests that contemporary dancers use strategies of embodiment to articulate, transmit, and integrate meaning and language. In the second part of the analysis, the focus lies on the experiences and conceptualizations of body, mind, thinking and their relations. The experiential concept of “observing while doing” is described and discussed. Finally, this thesis considers what kinds of notions of self, personhood and agency are attained in the experience of dancing. Here, theories on dividual subjects are used to examine ethnographical findings.

The analysis and ethnographical evidence in this thesis suggest that the experience of a dancing body is multiple and can be altered using strategies of embodiment. The multiplicity of the body, as well as the multiplicities of thinking and mind, are sensed through somatic modes of attention. Further, the expansion of experiential understandings of the body has led to conceptual multiplicity of the body and mind. Finally, this thesis argues that the dancing subjects are dividual in the way that their experiences and expressions are constituted by distinct embodied knowledges from their training, education, dance work, and other environments. The findings of this thesis call for reflection of the body-mind relation and notions of thinking in the West, utilizing knowledge produced by contemporary dancers attending specific perceptual awareness and notions of bodily knowledge and thinking in their work.







ANGRY STORIES (chor. Ellinor Ljungkvist) 2019-2021

project website 


Dansens Hus Stockholm 11/2019.
Choreography: Ellinor Ljungkvist
Dance: Amanda Billberg, Miranda Wallmon, Ida Helsten, Sonja-Riitta (Sonjis) Laine









This Container # 8: Horizon notes 2020

ed. Chloe Chignell, Maia Means, Stefan Govaart






the clicking is trees falling inside my body 2020


Danscentrum väst, Göteborg. Collab Alexander Talts & Emily Lavenbäck.
Supported by Konstnärsnämnden








Yhdessä maisemassa
dance video project for Covid-19 time audiences 2020


Supported by the City of Helsinki.
Working group: Sonjis Laine, Iina Holopainen, Wilma Maunula