Presentation av Leena Rouhiainen

Leena Rouhiainen is a dancer-choreographer and dance scholar, who has worked as a professional contemporary dance artist since 1990. She and her artistic collaborators have received several national awards for their artistic work in Finland (Nuori Suomi –palkinto 1996, Vuoden valopilkku 1995, Kritiikin kannukset 1993). Her doctoral dissertation was published in 2003 and addresses the issue of being a freelance dance artist through a phenomenological perspective.

Her current research interests are in artistic research, somatics and bodily knowledge as well as a phenomenological understanding of the dancer’s space. She has published several refereed articles and other texts on these issues.

She holds a postdoctoral researcher position at the Theatre Academy where she has also taught dance and research as well as was been a member of the steering group to the Department of Research Development between 2005–2008.

She was the head of the research project called Challenging the Notion of Knowledge between 2005–2007 at the same institution. Now she runs a research project entitled Intuition in Creative Processes at the Media Lab of the University of Art and Design in Helsinki.

She is the chair of the board of Nordic Forum for Research in Dance (NOFOD) and has acted as reviewer for several publications in the performing arts. She held the position of associate professor in dance and physical education at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences in Oslo for the spring-term 2009.