The duo RISA, Riia Kivimäki and Saku Mäkelä, won the Professional Exhibition category at the Majestic Dance Tournament in Brighton at the end of March. The duo have developed personalized movement language that combines dance and acrobatics.
“We got a standing ovation from the audience and judges, and a lot of new contacts around the world,” says Saku Mäkelä. For the competition, they created a new number under the mentorship of dancer Hanna Karttunen.
Majestic Dance Tournament is a new annual dance competition organised by Jukka Haapalainen and Sirpa Suutari-Jääskö together with Michael Stylianos and Lorna Lee. Haapalainen and Suutari-Jääskö are well-known professionals in the Finnish ballroom dance scene and internationally.