XDF

Founded in 2016, the X Dance Festival is a biennial event celebrating dance through inclusive practices, fostering innovation, and encouraging creative exploration. By embracing diverse movement experiences and ways of being, we inspire individuals to break through traditional boundaries and redefine concepts of the body and dance. Our mission is to cultivate connections, promote unity, and strengthen community ties within the dance field.

The festival features a wide range of activities, including workshops, performances, dance film screenings, panel discussions, interviews, conversations, and presentations. Since 2021, we have expanded our reach by offering the festival online, increasing global engagement within the inclusive dance community. In 2023, participants from Uganda, South Africa, the UK, France, New Zealand, the US, and Finland joined us.

To ensure accessibility, we provide sign language interpreters for all spoken events in English or Finnish, and most performances include audio descriptions. Additionally, the festival dedicates a day to children, with workshops at the Children’s X Dance Festival specifically designed to be accessible for children with disabilities. In 2023, we focused on supporting children with visual impairments. Our commitment to inclusivity extends to offering dedicated rest areas and guided meditations at scheduled intervals throughout the program.

The festival has reached over 2,200 participants and attendees worldwide and has employed more than 65 dance artists, both with and without disabilities. Recorded discussions, interviews, conversations, and presentations are available on the Kaaos Company YouTube channel, enabling ongoing engagement with the festival.

The next XDF will be in 2025.

Thank you to our collaborators and funders, including KONE Säätiö, Annantalo, Zodiak, Helsingin Kaupunki, Caisa, Kulttuuria Kaikille, Goethe Institute, Svenska Kulturfonden, TAIKE, Wihuri Säätiö, Eucrea, and the many individuals who have contributed and supported us. Your support makes our work possible, and we couldn’t do it without you.

30.5.-4.6.2023

aftermovie https://youtu.be/NZSIcf3OCqM

6.-13.6.2021

aftermovie https://youtu.be/-vdbOePg-h4

7.-10.6.2018

trailer https://youtu.be/l_g7nG3YKuw

10.6.2017

aftermovie https://youtu.be/5Orjt5SLNYU

8.-10.6.2016

info@kaaoscompany.fi

Contact information

Become a member

Kadar Khristan

To me dancing feels like I can go over the boundaries of limitation. Before I started to dance I always felt my boundaries and the state of my body, which often felt limited. When I began to dance I realized the limitations existed only in my mind.

The most important thing that dance has given me is the confidence to express myself and to be who I am. When I dance, I create new relations to myself, to others and to the space. Because dance has been so transformative for me, I want to encourage others to find the movements of body, mind and emotions, which connect us in our humanity.

I enjoy working in a group and want to develop in myself abilities and skills, which haven’t yet reached their full potential. I am curious by nature and I get along with different kinds of people in international and multicultural settings. I began dancing with Kaaos Company in 2019 after having participated in the Sunday movement improvisation classes. I have also featured in Nella Turk’s piece in 2021 and in Marc Brew’s choreography, which was realised as a collaboration between CODA Festival and the Oslo Opera House in 2022.

Member of the board – 2021 – 2023
Performer in Kaaos Company pieces: Katras, Principia, Torotörö, Lilac Loop

Silva Laukkanen

I am Silva Laukkanen. I love dance. I love movement. I love diversity. I love the beautiful moments that are created in space by bodies telling stories. I want to expand the notion of who can dance and where dance should happen and I have a deep passion for community art and providing access to dance.

Chair of the board – 2021 –
Dance teacher, DanceAbility -method – 2003 –
Director of Integrated Dance at Art Spark Texas, Austin TX 2019 –
Co-founder of Tractus Art with Christelle Dreyer
Co-author with Emmaly Wiederholt – Breadth of Bodies; Discussing Disability in Dance
Podcast Host; DanceCast

Siiri Tiilikka

I am Siiri Tiilikka. I have graduated as a dancer from the Keskuspuisto vocational school (now known as The Vocational College Live). I have also practiced Flamenco for many years, and I am part of the music school Resonaari’s Class Beat band. I also do rhythmic gymnastics and play tennis, and in my free time I also sing karaoke. I can also create choreographies and I am a really talented dancer.

Performer in Kaaos Company pieces: Know Body, Patella – floating bone, Mirage, Katras

Sirpa Miettinen

Sirpa Miettinen acts as the association’s executive director. Sirpa has previously worked at a dance festival as a producer and executive director.

Sirpa has previously worked as a producer and executive director of a dance festival.

Noora Västinen

As a dancer and dance teacher Noora values listening sensitively to one’s own body, breath and their relationship to movement. Acceptance and kindness towards oneself, and play and joy shared together are central in Noora’s teaching.

In all her work Noora aims to advance equality and accesible possibilities to participate in society, art and culture – both as a creator and as an experiencer.

Member of the board – 2021 –
Dance teacher, DanceAbility -method – 2017 –
Expert and educator of inclusive and applied art
Dancer in Kaaos Company pieces – Pond, Patella, Alkemik Konnektions, Mirage, Principia

Sami Kekäläinen

Sami is a musician, dance enthusiast and multi-area freelancer based in Helsinki. His skills in music include singing, production and live performance. He makes rap music under the name MC Zen, and has a long-standing experience as a street musician.

A person motivated by curiosity and new experiences, he ventured to explore the world of inclusive dance in 2019. On this path he happily remained and found a cozy place of belonging in Kaaos Company. In addition to being an active participant in classes, he has created music for Kaaos Company performances and does various tasks such as translation work.

Member of the board – 2024 –

Music maker for performances – Mirage, Bird’s Song (Siiri Tiilikka’s solo performance)

Jonna Lehto

Jonna is a performance and dance artist who works with humor, communality and equality. She has been involved in Kaaos Company’s activity since 2014 in many different roles, such as as a performer, as a director and as a producer in performance and workshop projects. Currently Jonna is in the association board and teaches inclusive movement improvisation classes to both children and adults. Jonna enjoys making explorations in body language and imagination as she studies elements of curiosity and surprise.

Member of the board – 2015 – 2019, 2021 –
Teacher – 2015 –
Performer in Kaaos Company pieces: INfloresense, Chinese Whispers, Know Body, Pond, Patella – floating bone, Katras

Georgie Goater

Georgie Goaer (NZ/FI) is a Helsinki-based dance artist from Aotearoa, New Zealand. As a performer, choreographer and facilitator she is excited to collaborate in communities of different embodied perceptions. When each person is an expert in their own unique corporeality, dance and performace weave relative, balanced and inclusive practices for creating and experiencing art together. Senses, memory, imagination and play that is based on tasks are elements in Georgie’s artistic explorations.

She was proudly part of Aotearoa’s Touch Compass as a whānaua dancer and teacher in 2012 – 2016.

Kaaos Company artist – 2017 –
Dance teacher – 2020 –
Board member – 2021 – 2023

Gunilla Sjövall

In my youth I dreamt of myself as a dancer. However, it took almost 50 years before I dared to begin fulfilling this dream (one cannot dance with a wheelchair… right?). The barriers broke when in the summer of 2004 out of a lack of things to do I participated to Alito Alessi’s DanceAbility -course at the Täydenkuun tanssit -contemporary dance festival. This transformative experience was continued next summer, and in 2006 I traveled to Wien to complete the DanceAbility -teacher training in Alito’s guidance.

I would not be myself if I didn’t want to share the opportunities I have received with others. The result of this was the founding of DanceAbility Finland ry in 2008 and Kaaos Company in 2010. I have been the chair of the board in DAF for nine years and after that have remained active although in a less central role. I have danced in Kaaos ever since it’s beginning, the latest performance having been in the farewell(?) piece Swan Song (2022) with Sally Davison.

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