In this article two Finnish choreographer–composer duos shed light on their collaboration. Choreographer Susanna Leinonen, who comes from a ballet background, and rap musician Kasperi Laine have found a shared frequency in dark themes and sarcastic humour. Choreographer–musician Elina Pirinen and contemporary composer Ville Kabrell, meanwhile, describe themselves as “doom siblings.” In their works, the combination of music and movement is powerfully transgressive – breaking boundaries.
TEXT: Maria Säkö. TRANSLATION: Simo Vassinen. The article was originally published in Finnish Circus & Dance in Focus magazine in January 2026.
Susanna Leinonen and her working group’s latest piece Pain Killer (2025) fuses movement, music and video to capture the cruelty of the present moment and, in its own distinct way, to push back against it. While it carries traces of Leinonen’s earlier works, it also takes a markedly different approach.
“I’ve been exploring movement language through the lens of contemporary medicalisation,” says Leinonen.
The dancers, with their tightly trained backgrounds, appear laconic, dropped and deliberately unpoised. For Leinonen, this is an entirely new direction. For the music, Kasperi Laine has ventured into the hazy borderlands between noise and music, chaos and order.
“The central question here is how to hold things together. I had this image: what if there were an orchestra where nobody’s OK? One has depression, another has a serious drug problem, and so on.” Laine feels that in contemporary dance the music often follows what happens on stage. But not in Leinonen’s world.
“In our collaboration, the music functions almost like a script. At times, it even forms a kind of dramaturgical foundation,” says Laine. With his background in rap, making music without words feels liberating. Letting go of words and definitions is, in fact, a defining feature of their collaboration.
When Susanna Leinonen starts a choreographic process, Kasperi Laine’s music doesn’t yet exist – the dance is initially created to entirely different music. The dancers, whose roots lie in a neoclassical ballet tradition, mustn’t fall in love with the rehearsal soundtrack.
“I first develop the movement material using other rehearsal music. This grants the freedom to shape a diverse and independent movement language, since the final musical dramaturgy doesn’t yet restrict expression or structure,” Leinonen explains. Once the movement is sufficiently formed, she begins adapting it to Kasperi’s composition.
“This way of working allows for the creation of contrasts. For example, if I’ve created a movement sequence to very dramatic music, I might then transfer it to one of Kassu’s extremely minimalist soundscapes. Something that was born from very harsh and loud elements might then be set to something tender and quiet,” Leinonen says.
Over two decades of collaboration, the duo’s shared process has evolved. Kasperi now knows how to leave pauses in his music, while Leinonen’s choreography has found simpler forms.
Their shared, sarcastic sense of humour keeps them connected. It carries a transgressive power. Just when you think Pain Killer is completely serious, a viewer might suddenly let out a surprised chuckle. These logic-twisting jolts break the boundary between art and reality.
Susanna Leinonen Company turns 25 this year. The anniversary season concludes on November 19–21 at Konepaja Stage in Helsinki with the premiere Head x Space.
Composing against a bodily field
Ville Kabrell and Elina Pirinen began working together about ten years ago. At the time, Pirinen had been examining the compositions and iconic status of deceased Russian male composers like Shostakovich and Rachmaninov – and longed for a new vision. She wanted to surprise herself and her brand, and share a creative process with a living composer.
“Rhythms, ritualism, and hybrid images of sound and body are damn important to us. The pulses of aliveness are deeply present in our collaboration,” choreographer Elina Pirinen sums up her and Ville Kabrell’s work together.
For audiences, their first joint work, Brume de Mer (2018), seemed to open a door Pirinen had long been knocking on. It emerged from the shared volume of a psycho-physiologically charged circle dance and organ music. This was followed by Mortal Tropical Dances (2023) and Doves and Bloods (2024).
“As a choreographer and dancer, you’re so exposed with your body and your own expression. I seek out a neo-primitive channel that creates a connection with the audience. It’s important that Ville isn’t afraid of that. And vice versa. Ville’s music is fierceness, and therefore physical!” describes Pirinen.
For both, creating counterpoints is vital. In Kabrell’s compositional work, physicality informs the sonic image: “I spend time with the dancers and observe what moves me – what the moving elements are in the sound, the music, and the body. What creates resonance. In a way, music should open up the possibility for the body to transform, from everyday being into fantasy.”
When developing a piece, Pirinen asks whether the emerging image of the body is feminist:
“Is it sexual, mortal, disturbing, multi-tempered, colourful – what comes out of the body? Does it carry many expressions?”
Pirinen’s practice and voice often draw on the earth, on maternal and vulvic power. The entire team shares an experience of life and reality danced through ancestral traumas and phantasms. Kabrell composes in response to this bodily field.
According to Pirinen, within a choreographic framework Kabrell’s musical material is as full and rich as the body is in her choreography.
Ville Kabrell and Elina Pirinen’s collaboration thus began when Pirinen temporarily set aside her concept centred on Russian male composer-geniuses. However, they returned to the Russian icon and to Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring whilst planning their next work. Ghosts of Rosegarden premiered in Helsinki on 6 October 2026 – no one was sacrificed.
The next performances of Ghosts of Rosegarden will take place at Dansens Hus in Stockholm at the end of October 2026.