Abrons Arts Center

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Presented in Partnership with Triangle Arts Association
 Bodymorphosis

December 15, 2026
 4:30pm

Facilitated by Teo Ala-Ruona as part of his Triangle Arts residency, this workshop invites participants to explore the imaginative power of the body.

Through a series of exercises, we imagine the dissolution of the body's boundaries and opening up new sensory modes of being with the flesh and the mind. We explore internal psychophysical transformations, from which different forms of movement begin to emerge. We dance through imaginary landscapes, and the melting of social masks.

The exercises draw on Ala-Ruona's long-standing artistic and embodied research, in which the performer moves through somatic and perceptual practices, entering processes of metaphysical transformation, shedding aspects of the socially constituted self, and opening up unusual ways of sensing, inhabiting, and becoming the body.

Through movement, and imaginative scores, participants enter a playful process of bodily reconfiguration. The workshop includes solo and partner exercises.

Bodymorphosis is open to all experience levels, for anyone interested in exploring movement and dance through imaginative practice.

Workshop

  • Dec 15 December 15

About Teo Ala-Ruona

Teo Ala-Ruona is an interdisciplinary artist based in Helsinki, working in the expanded field of performance at the intersection of choreography, contemporary theatre, and visual arts. His practice seeks metaphysical transformation that shifts the attunement of human corporeality, navigating the intersections of linguistic, somatic, and social existence. His work moves between externally imposed categories and the body’s internal experience, attending to the ways systems of classification shape the body - inside out.

By using the performing body as a site of felt contemplation, he studies how alternative stage realities can reconfigure the relationship to the body, articulating politics of corporeal philosophy. He exposes the human body to analysis, making it a palpable site for examining the operations of the categorising gaze. In Ala-Ruona’s work, trans embodiment operates as a conceptual framework and a philosophical apparatus through which he critically examines society’s conception of the body, expanding the understanding of what a body can be.

Ala-Ruona’s work has recently been shown in The Biennale Architettura 2025 (Venice), Performa Biennial (New York), Fundació Joan Miró Museum (Barcelona), The Vilnius Biennial of Performance Art (Vilnius), The Finnish National Gallery Kiasma (Helsinki), The Institute of Contemporary Arts in London (London), among others. Ala-Ruona has graduated from Master’s Programme in Art Education at Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture in 2016 and from Master’s Programme in Ecology and Contemporary Performance, at Helsinki Theatre Academy in 2018. Ala-Ruona is the associate artist of Zodiak – Center for New Dance 2025-2028.

About Triangle Arts Association

Triangle is an artist residency program based in Brooklyn, New York. Triangle’s mission is to provide committed artists with a transformative working environment, grounded in experimentation and rigor, and offering opportunities to create and share new work in a supportive community of peers and engaged audiences.