Ronja Ver has been living, loving, exploring, teaching and performing Contact Improvisation for over 20 years. They are a dancer and dance maker, artist, activist, and teacher, a native of Finland, currently dancing and making work in the Bay Area. Their choreography has been presented by the American Dance Festival (Durham, NC), Movement Research at the Judson Church (New York), Danspace Project (New York), Zodiak – Centre for New Dance (Helsinki), Aleksanterin Teatteri (Helsinki), among others. Former posts include the National Theatre of Finland, Beyond Improvisation Collective, and Riitta Vainio Dance Company. Since 2001 they have created several full evening works for both theater and found spaces. They have performed and collaborated in works by Nancy Stark Smith and Mike Vargas, Deborah Hay, Sara Shelton Mann, Jaana Turunen, Mirja Tukiainen, Keith Hennessy, David Hurwith, Scott Wells, Jaap Klevering, and are featured spinning underwater in Steve Paxton’s DVD Material for the Spine. Ronja Ver has taught Contact Improvisation at various festivals around the world, including American Dance Festival, wcciJAM, and the Freiburg festival in Germany, as well as in University setting, e.g. at Hollins University, Prescott College, Helsinki University of Arts and Design, and the Theatre Academy of Finland. They are a co-founder of the Finnish CI festival Skiing On Skin, and hold an MFA in Dance from Hollins University.

Professor@s relevant@s

Nancy Stark Smith, Steve Paxton, Soile Lahdenperä, Jaana Turunen, Sara Shelton Mann, Nita Little