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| “It all comes from life” Until now, my focus has been finding new ideas and inspirations through the development of the movement material, which is based on Finnish-European contemporary dance. The emphasis of the movement has been to create fast and energetic dance. I’m very ambitious choreographer and trainer ensuring that my choreographies are well rehearsed, and I expect that my dancers are dancing perfectly together, finding their matching lines and shapes in space. I want to create choreographies that are full in experience. Over the years I have been working with sound designers, composers, set designers, costume designers, to help to enrich the stories in my mind. To give a structure to my choreographies, I am using scenes, and creating the movement around those “scenes”. The scenes can be coded by color, sound, emotion, etc. I want to find that perfect moment in movement that everything clicks together – and transforms to the emotion through the motion. But, the absoluteness in me has been transforming in to something that has not found a form yet. I can feel it coming in to my dance, but I am looking for a new shape for it. Transitions – I have had many of them during these years of incubation – as I call the five latest years of my life, when I have not focused 100% of my life and energy into dance. Instead of only sharing my life, I have been creating life. It has been such a big transition, that it has changed my views into more realistic, but as ambitious perspectives of movement and dance. My mission statement is “It all comes from life”. I have moved from the clean pure lines and building the choreography solely on the movement, into searching for little moments, that are build together with gestures, breathing, stillness. But I won’t lose the request of the fast dance. Raisa Punkki founder, choreographer, dancer 
Photo by Claire Bloomberg Costume/Set design by Claire Pasquier punkkiCo
Raisa Punkki founded punkkiCo in 2005. She wants to create artistically satisfying, high quality performances in collaboration with artists from different fields. Former collaborators include Composer Albert Mathias and Artist Nicole Bauguss. punkkiCo wants to concentrate in presenting highly finished, uncompromising performances that can be enjoyed by all ages. punkkiCo has been seen at the Cowell Theater, CounterPulse among others and has received residences at the Shotwell Studios and GARAGE Art Space. In 2006 company was invited to perform at the Full Moon Dance Festival, Finland with the commissioned work from Raisa Punkki. punkkiCo is invited back to Full Moon Dance Festival in 2011. Raisa Punkki’s choreographies have been presented at the Bay Area in e.g. Collaboration! Music and Dance, 2nd Sundays and at the Women on the Way –festival. punkkiCo had it’s first season with full houses in June 2009 at the Dance Mission Theater. punkkiCo is fiscally sponsored by Dancers’ Group. COMPANY MEMBERS 
Photo by Rob Kunkle Costume/Set design by Claire Pasquier | Raisa Punkki Choreographer, Dancer, Founder of punkkiCo Raisa Punkki graduated with an MfA at the Department of Dance, Theatre Academy in Helsinki, Finland, in 1992. After several years as a freelancer she signed up with the Helsinki City Theatre Dance Company (96-98), where she danced in choreographies e.g. by Kenneth Kvarnström, Anzu Furukawa and Tero Saarinen. The following four years toured intensively with Kenneth Kvarnström & Co, in and outside Europe. Raisa has taught contemporary dance at the dance departments of various Art schools in Europe and US. Raisa Punkki has made choreographies for both theater and dance companies. She has received several grants, awards and nominations, including the state (Finland) grant, the best dancer of the year nomination and twice a grant from The Zellerbach Family Foundation. Raisa Punkki/punkkiCo reseived a Lighting Designer Award together with light Designer Christian Mejia, for punkkiCo's new work a pixel of an idea (2011). |  Photo by Rob Kunkle | Paul Laurey Dancer Paul Laurey was raised in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Paul began his study of dance through sheer serendipity when he was in the middle of a doctoral program in cognitive neuroscience. Improvisational dance led Paul into devotional study of many dance forms and somatic practices. He has studied and performed in Oregon, San Francisco, Boston, and New York. Paul actively integrates the study of dance and somatics with current understandings of human psychology as revealed by the study of the nervous system. He has worked collaboratively with Kelly Kemp, Lindsay Gilmour, Christine Cali and Phillipae Kaye and Company. |  Photo by Rob Kunkle | Mihyun Lee Dancer Mihyun Lee is a freelance dancer and choreographer from Seoul , South Korea, who is currently living in San Francisco. She studied Korean dance, ballet and contemporary dance, jazz, improvisation and yoga. She received a BA in choreography from Kookmin University in 2005 and studied with Aesoon Ahn, Mina Yoo among others. She worked with Yoonjin Kim Dance Company, YJK Dance Company and with Dean Moss. Currently she is working with ABD Company and punkkiCo. She was a part of the production of Kisaeng Becomes You in 2008 and 2009 in Korea, Hong-Kong and New York, which received great reviews at the New York Times.
|  Photo by Rob Kunkle | Jennifer Meek Dancer Jennifer graduated magna cum laude with a BFA in contemporary dance performance from Point Park University. She went on to perform in Chicago with Thodos Dance Chicago, Lucky Plush Productions, Concert Dance, and Hedwig Dances. Upon moving to the bay area Jennifer has performed with Kunst-stoff, Capacitor, and Moving Arts. In addition to performing, she enjoys teaching dance and yoga and sharing the importance of well being and artistic expression. She has presented choreography at The Garage, Dance Mission Theater, and RoCo Dance and Fitness. |  Photo by Rob Kunkle | Danny Nguyen Dancer Danny Nguyen was introduced to dance through his involvement with
colorguard since 2006. He is currently completing a Dance and Performance
Studies Major at UC Berkeley, where he has worked with Joe Goode, Jess
Curtis, Katie Faulkner, Bliss Kohlmyer, Sue Li-Jue and Kathleen
Hermesdorf. Danny Nguyen joined punkkiCo in 2010. |  Photo by Rob Kunkle | Emma Stewart Dancer Emma’s dance background includes 16 years of ballet, contemporary, contact improvisation, hip hop, and various forms of West African and Caribbean dance. She has been a member of The Newbury Contemporary Dance Company (UK), Jemmbarrio (UK), Bent Spoon (US), Dance Ceres (US), Paco Gomes & Dancers (US) and Loose Change Dance Company (Eric Fenn) and has had the pleasure of working with choreographers Robert Moses (Kin), David Dorfman (Dorfman), Carl Flink (Jose Limon), and Michael Foley (Foley Dance). From 1997-1999 she taught Advanced Contemporary at Oxford University as well as Dance/Theater in low-income schools. In the Bay Area, she has performed at ODC/Theater, Project Artaud, Cowell Theater, Dance Mission, Stanford Cantor Center, Jon Sims Center for the Performing Arts, and 848. In 2008, she was invited to become a member of the Board of Directors of ODC/Dance. Emma currently manages the sustainable business program at Autodesk and holds a BA in Evolutionary Biology from Oxford University and a doctorate in environmental management from Stanford University. |  Art work by Claire Pasquier | Claire Pasquier Costume and Set Designer Claire Pasquier is a French artist who lives and works in San Francisco. Painting was such a revelation for her that it led her to study the history of art at the Sorbonne and afterwards to enter a school of decorative arts (Ensad) in Paris where she learned set and stage design in addition to costume design. After her degree Claire did several productions in theatre, children’s Opera, cinema (short films) and events. Claire approaches creation as a self-renaissance: to find our freedom and to shape it until passes into others. Claire has been working with Raisa Punkki since 2006. |  Photo by Claire Bloomberg Light design by Christian Mejia Costume/Set design by Claire Pasquier | Christian Mejia Light Designer Christian Mejia is a lighting and scenic designer working in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2004, he graduated with a B.F.A in Production Design from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. After spending two years trying to juggle work in the downtown theatre circuit with a job in 3D animation, he decided to return to the Bay Area to pursue the performing arts full time. Christian now works as the technical director and production manager of the Village Theatre in Danville, CA. He also designs lighting and scenery for dance and theatrical productions across the Bay Area. |
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