punkkiCo

About Raisa Punkki
Raisa Punnki is a dancer, choreographer, teacher and the founder of punkkiCo. When it comes to her work, she leans toward an aesthetic that welcomes the energetic, sensual and strange.  Raised in Finland, she counts her years working in theater doing plays, musicals and dance as a chief influence. As well as an abiding interest in photography and the natural world. “I have filmed many sunrises in San Francisco.”
 
When it comes to inspiration, Punkki primarily looks to situations in everyday life between people, but like many artists other artists also inspire her. A short list of these would include Georgia O’Keefe, Dan Perjovchi and Abisag Tullman plus choreographers Kenneth Kvarnström and Wayne McGregor along with actors Elizabeth Taylor, Shirley McClaine and vintage Michael Gambon. “At one point I read everything published by Salman Rushdie, Paul Auster, Oliver Sacks, David Mamet and Poter Hoeg.”
 
Punkki’s work is known for its combination of abstraction, theatrical costuming and lighting along with a penchant for brooding and haunting electronica as a soundscape.
 
Grants and nominations include two Finnish State Grants, Zellerbach Family and Finlandia Foundation grants, along with a nomination as Finland’s Best Dancer of the Year. Since founding PunkkiCo in 2005, her choreography and dances have appeared at the Women On the Way Festival, Collaboration Music and Dance, ODC’s Pilot 57 and 58 and CounterPulse.
 
PunkkiCo’s work includes Polar Night, end trance, nunataks and All Blue among other titles. In 2011 she will debut an evening length piece entitled Pick Cells with artist Claire Pasquier, composer Albert Mathias and lighting designer Christian Mejia. Pick Cells premieres the weekend of November 11-13 at Dance Mission Theater. 

 
About punkkiCo
PunkkiCo seeks to create artistically satisfying high quality performance through collaboration with artists from different disciplines in order to transform emotion into motion. Music composition, sound and costume design are all pivotal in the development of the “movement material,” which is based on Finnish and European contemporary dance. Founded in 2005 by Raisa Punkki—who says about her work, “It all comes from life”—collaborators have included composers Albert Mathias and Jean Jeanrenaud, artist Nicole Bauguss, set and costume designer Claire Pasquier, and lighting designer Christian Mejia. Over the years PunkiiCo has moved from a reliance on clean, pure lines and speed of movement into looking for and incorporating those little moments that can be held together by gestures, breathing or stillness. Fiscal Sponsor for punkkiCo is Dancers Group.

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 ODC House Special 8/20/2011

"I've been really inspired by Raisa's formalism, her very conscious approach to phrasemaking," Bailis says. "She's got a wonderful dramatic sensibility in a classical approach to modern dance. She comes to us with a tremendous amount of craft and really interesting ideas about the moving body."

Rob Bailis, ODC Theater Director 

Read about the artists and Rob Bailis's curatorial choices in the San Jose Mercury News

February 2011,

Raisa Punkki received a grant from Finnish Cultural Foundation for her new choreography Pick-Cells.

Lighting Artists in Dance Award for Pick-Cells -choreography

 

 

To support the collaborative work of Light Designer Christian Mejia and Raisa Punkki/ punkkiCo

MEDIA 

Finnish television interview and footage Raisa Punkki as a dancer in Kenneth Kvarnstrom's no no

http://www.yle.fi/elavaarkisto/?s=s&g=4&ag=25&t=740&a=6283

7x7

http://www.7x7.com/arts/punkkico-garage-space

CALENDAR

And a grant from Finnish Cultural Foundation    

VIDEOS