Dancer & Choreographer Theatre Director Researcher

Nella
Turkki

Working at the intersection of ecological art, embodied research,
and community practice — where bodies meet environment.

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Who she is

Artist.
Researcher.
Pedagogue.

Dancer & choreographer
Theatre director
Community art practitioner
Eco-social researcher
Somatic coach & educator

Nella Turkki is a Finnish dancer, choreographer, and theatre director whose work moves at the meeting point of ecology, social justice, and embodied practice. She creates performances, community art projects, and pedagogical frameworks that ask what it means to be a body in relation — to other people, to environments, to the more-than-human world.

Her practice is grounded in applied theatre and somatic approaches, shaped by extensive experience across Finland and internationally. She works with professional companies and with communities who have rarely had access to art-making — holding both with equal seriousness.

Alongside her artistic work, Nella is an active researcher. She has published peer-reviewed work on eco-social justice in dance education and is currently developing a research focus she plans to pursue at doctoral level — exploring how embodied and arts-based practices can transform learning environments and social dynamics.

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Performances & Community Art
Work Performances &
Community Art

Stage work, community projects, and participatory art across Finland and internationally.

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Research and Scholarship
Academic Research &
Scholarship

Peer-reviewed publications and academic work on eco-social justice in dance education.

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Coaching & Embodiment
Practice Coaching &
Embodiment

Workshops, individual coaching, and service design grounded in somatic and movement practice.
Work

Performances & Projects

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Oikeusjuttu
Performance 2026

Oikeusjuttu

Choreographer · Direction: Mikko Korsulainen

A theatre play dedicated to youth, for which Nella created the choreography. Produced by Oulu Theatre, one of Finland's major regional theatres, with premiere in March 2026.

ChoreographyYouth theatreOulu Theatre
Juurimatka
Performance 2026

Juurimatka

Oulu 2026 European Capital of Culture

A new performance project exploring roots, migration, and the body's memory of place — tracing what we carry in our bodies when we move across landscapes and cultures.

New workRoots & migrationOulu 2026
More about Juurimatka
Berührungspunkte Vol II
Community Art 2025

Berührungspunkte Vol II

City Theatre Oberhausen, Germany

Continuation of the participatory dance piece and artistic workshop of touch, now presented at City Theatre Oberhausen. The work explores the politics and poetics of bodily contact in shared public space.

ParticipatoryTouchGermany
Lavatanssit
Performance 2023 – 2025

Lavatanssit

Dance artist / choreographer · With Marje Hirvonen

A dance work created with Marje Hirvonen, touring across major European festivals. Premiered at Münsterland Festival, Emsdetten, Germany (September 2023), followed by Tanztausch Festival, Cologne (September 2024) and Playground – Dance Festival, Wuppertal (July 2025).

DuetTourGermany
Metsänalaiset
Community Art 2022

Metsänalaiset

Ensemble performer / initiator / choreographer · Forests in Vantaa & Varkaus, Finland

A participatory theatre performance shaped as a forest excursion — delving into the world of mycelium, the hidden network of fungi beneath the forest floor. Performed in real forests, July–September 2022.

Site-specificEcologyParticipatoryFinland
More about Metsänalaiset
Vapaus olla!
Community Art 2022

Vapaus olla!

Director · City of Varkaus, Finland

A short film created together with 60 children and young people in Varkaus. Nella directed the work as part of a community arts commission, bringing movement and performative presence into the filmmaking process.

FilmYouthCommunityFinland
ILMA
Performance 2019

ILMA

Director / choreographer · Zodiak New Dance Centre, Helsinki, Finland

A work created and directed by Nella for Zodiak — Finland's leading centre for new dance — premiering in December 2019 in Helsinki.

DirectionChoreographyZodiak Helsinki
I, Holobiont
Performance 2019

I, Holobiont

Dancer & choreographer · With Janis Heldmann · Pottporus Festival, Herne, Germany

A lecture-performance exploring the human body as a multispecies entity. Where are our borders to the environment, if we are not alone in our bodies? How can we encounter the unknown in us and each other? Premiere: October 2019.

Lecture-performanceHolobiont scienceInterdisciplinary
More about I, Holobiont
#LUFT
Community Art 2019

#LUFT

Director / choreographer · Pottporus Festival & Chance Tanz, Herne, Germany

A contemporary dance project about climate change made with young people. Premiere at Pottporus Festival, October 2019 — weaving environmental urgency with embodied expression in a youth co-creation process.

ClimateYouthCo-creationGermany
Berührungspunkte
Community Art 2019

Berührungspunkte

Participatory dance piece / artistic workshop · Funder: LAG Tanz, Herne, Germany

A participatory dance piece and artistic workshop exploring touch as political and intimate territory. Developed in Herne, August 2019, with a continuation as Berührungspunkte Vol II at City Theatre Oberhausen in 2025.

ParticipatoryTouchWorkshopGermany
HOLD ON
Performance 2019

HOLD ON

Director / choreographer · With Emma Valtonen · Tanzhaus NRW, Düsseldorf, Germany

A work co-created and co-directed with Emma Valtonen, presented at Tanzhaus NRW — one of Germany's most important venues for contemporary dance — in July 2019.

DirectionDuetTanzhaus NRW
Getting in Touch
Community Art 2018

Getting in Touch

City of Herne & Pottporus Dance School, Germany

A dance project with young people with recent immigration backgrounds — creating a movement practice and performance context that centred belonging, encounter, and the possibility of finding common ground through the body.

YouthMigrationIntegrationGermany
Flames Musical
Performance 2017

Flames Musical

Director · Finnish community in Germany · Cologne & Frankfurt

Director of a full-scale musical produced by the Finnish community in Germany, developed January–October 2017 across Cologne and Frankfurt, with premiere in October 2017.

MusicalDirectionCommunityGermany
FEST
Performance 2017

FEST

Director / choreographer · TanzFaktur, Cologne, Germany

A contemporary dance performance exploring vulnerability in relation to homeland. Premiered at TanzFaktur, Cologne (March 2017), then toured to Faces-Festival, Fiskars, Finland (August 2017) and Tanztausch-Festival, Cologne (December 2017).

DirectionHomeland & memoryTour
More about FEST
Anhel
Performance 2013 – 2017

Anhel

Dancer & choreographer · Premiere: Capellades, Spain, December 2013

A long-touring solo/choreographic work that travelled widely across Europe: Porto, Helsinki, Paris, Zagreb (Faki Festival), Moscow (ZIL Festival for Contemporary Dance), and Cologne (TanzFaktur). One of Nella's most internationally presented works.

SoloInternational tourEurope
The Strings
Performance 2014 – 2017

The Strings

Physical theatre & dance · Strings Theatre Company · Porto, Portugal

A physical theatre and dance performance premiering at Edificio AXA, Porto (January 2014). Winner of the street theatre award at Imaginarius Festival, Portugal (2014). Toured to Paris, and represented at the International Theatre Festival in Kerala, India (2017).

Physical theatreAward-winningInternational tour
Memento
Performance 2015

Memento

Director · With Strings Theatre Company · Imaginarius Festival, Santa Maria da Feira, Portugal

Co-directed with Strings Theatre Company for the Imaginarius international theatre festival in Portugal — a site-responsive work exploring memory and trace in public space.

DirectionFestivalPortugal
Embellished Abundance
Performance 2015

Embellished Abundance

J'Agura – Love Festival · South Bank, London, UK

A performance work presented at J'Agura Love Festival on London's South Bank, August 2015.

FestivalLondon
Travelogues in this town
Community Art 2014 – 2015

Travelogues in this town

Oulu Reception Centre & Arts Promotion Centre Finland

A community art project at the intersection of migration and place — created with residents at the Oulu Reception Centre with support from Arts Promotion Centre Finland. August 2014–2015.

MigrationCommunityFinland
JINN
Performance 2014 – 2016

JINN

Dancer & choreographer · New York University, Abu Dhabi, UAE

A visiting art resource project and performance developed at New York University in Abu Dhabi, November 2014–April 2016, with premiere in March 2016. An extended intercultural choreographic residency in the Gulf.

ResidencyNYU Abu DhabiUAE
PopOrNot!?
Community Art 2014

PopOrNot!?

Director · Arts Promotion Centre & collaborative schools, Finland

A visiting theatre and puppetry show about discrimination and bullying, touring collaborative schools across Finland. Funded by Arts Promotion Centre Finland, October 2013–September 2014.

YouthSchools tourAnti-bullyingFinland
Happened Here Today
Performance 2011

Happened Here Today

Eduardo Mondlane University Theatre Department · Maputo, Mozambique

A performance created in collaboration with the theatre department of Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo — Nella's earliest recorded international artistic collaboration, in August 2011.

InternationalCollaborationMozambique
Academic Practice

Research
& Scholarship

Nella's research practice grows directly from her artistic and pedagogical work. She investigates how embodied and arts-based methods can address eco-social challenges in educational and community contexts — and how movement itself can be a form of knowing.

Her published work focuses on eco-social justice in dance education, examining how somatic awareness shapes learning environments, student agency, and social dynamics. She is developing this into a doctoral research focus.

Future direction

Nella is actively working toward a PhD in education or arts-based practice — pursuing the question of how embodied, ecological approaches can transform how we learn, relate, and act in the world.

Eco-social justice in dance education

How can dance pedagogy address social and ecological questions simultaneously? Research into teaching practices that hold both human and environmental wellbeing.

Embodied learning environments

How somatic awareness, presence, and physical attunement shape the dynamics of learning spaces — in schools, higher education, and community settings.

Arts-based methods & multispecies thinking

Drawing on work like I, Holobiont and Metsänalaiset — using art as a research method for exploring human-environment relations.

2022

Ilmaan kietoutuneet — Ryhmälähtöinen tanssiteos avaamassa ymmärrystä osallisuudesta ilmastoon

Nella Turkki · Sosiaalipedagogiikan aikakausikirja, 2022

doi.org/10.30675/sa.109417
2021

EcoJustice Approach to Dance Education

Raisa Foster & Nella Turkki · Journal of Dance Education, 2021

doi.org/10.1080/15290824.2021.1906430
2020

In the air — Moving through climate emotions

Nella Turkki & Anna Lehtonen · DRAMA, Vol. 57, Iss. 2, pp. 20–25, 2020

2020

Woven Into the Air — Dance as a Practice Towards Ecologically and Socially Just Communities

Nella Turkki · Master Thesis, Uniarts Helsinki, 2020

helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/318064

MA in Dance Art & Dance Pedagogy

Theatre Academy, Uniarts Helsinki, Finland

2018 – 2020

BA in Contemporary Dance Studies

Hochschule für Musik und Tanz, Cologne, Germany

2014 – 2017

BA in Drama Instruction, Theatre & Puppetry

Arts Academy, University of Applied Sciences, Turku, Finland

2010 – 2014

Planning Teacher of Performing Arts

TaiKon – City of Vaasa, Finland

August 2022 – present

President of the Board

JoJo – Oulu Dance Centre, Finland

January 2025 – present

Dance Teacher (full-time)

Soisalo-opisto – City of Varkaus, Finland

August 2020 – July 2022

Planning Teacher (substitute)

Soisalo-opisto – City of Varkaus, Finland

April – June 2021

Nella has delivered trainings, workshops, and academic presentations on eco-social sustainability and climate awareness in art at universities across Finland and internationally — including Aalto University, University of Helsinki (HY+ project), University of Tampere, New York University in Abu Dhabi, and Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln.

Practice & Facilitation

Coaching &
Embodiment

Nella brings her artistic and research practice into workshops, coaching, and service design — offering individuals, communities, and organisations a movement-based approach to presence, group dynamics, and wellbeing. Drawing on somatic inquiry, dance, and applied theatre, she creates conditions for genuine encounter.

Workshops

Somatic and movement-based workshops tailored to context and group — from one-day intensives to longer formats, for communities, educational institutions, and organisations.

Coaching

Individual sessions drawing on embodied awareness and somatic inquiry — for artists, educators, and anyone seeking a body-based approach to their creative or personal challenges.

Service Design

Facilitation and service design that brings embodiment principles into workplace culture, group dynamics, and organisational wellbeing — grounded in Nella's YAMK studies in service design.

Get in touch

Let's make
something

For performance inquiries, workshop bookings, research collaborations, residency proposals, or PhD supervision conversations — Nella welcomes contact.

nella@example.com

Open to

  • Performance commissions & collaborations
  • Community art projects & residencies
  • Workshop & coaching engagements
  • Research partnerships & co-authorship
  • PhD supervision conversations
  • Lecture & keynote invitations