Freelance Choreographer.
Wilma-Emilia specializes in choreographing jazz dance pieces. Is your company looking for a new choreographer or do your teachers need inspiration to create jazz dance routines? Contact us now for jazz dance choreography.
“In the creative process I feel it’s essential to connect with your soul before taking any action or making a step. This way whatever you end up doing came from the right place. You need to be able to listen to your heart and take the time to feel what is going on around you. Only by knowing where you are you can communicate with others from a true place. I believe the only way of truly getting through to people is sharing something of yourself and this way you can communicate. Dancing for me is the most natural way to communicate. Sometimes the word performance is misleading to me since it gives out the impressions of portraying something else – I think all performing is honestly sharing the moment with your audience. If you want to be able to communicate you need to start by listening. So, I start by listening to my heart. I think you can only dance with all of your being and that’s why I call everything I do the #danceyourheartoutsessions”
– Wilma-Emilia Kuosa, Jazz Dance Artist
Drag Shows
Wilma-Emilia Kuosa has been choreographing for drag queens such as MissB andSheila and for the Helsinki Drag Battle-concept.
KESYTÖN - Marquise of O - Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
KESYTON / TAMELESS was the main production of the spring 2022 in KokoTheater, at Helsinki, Finland.
In TAMELESS Wilma-Emilia had two different roles, both playing tha father figure in different eras of patriarchy. She danced on point and learned aerial acrobatics for the show*hanging upside down in the picture. She sang the parts of the first soprano in the musical numbers while dancing.
Screenplay by Enis Maci
Finnish translator Ville Koskivaara
Director Anna Veijalainen
Performers Wilma-Emilia Kuosa, Cécile Orblin, Anu Palevaara, Petriikka Pohjanheimo, Sara Ritala, Cristal Snow, Jani Toivola
Sound design Anssi Vättö
Lighting design Pietari Salmi
Costume design by Kai Salo
Music by Eeppi Ursin
Videos, photos and graphic design by Heidi Bergström
Read one of the reviews here https://demokraatti.fi/teatteriarvio-naisen-asemaa-kasitteleva-kesyton-rakentaa-tarinansa-kahden-klassikon-paalle
HÄKKIOOPPERA/Cage Opera
Wilma-Emilia Kuosa’s new jazz dance piece embodies a poetry novel
Cage Opera is a narrative dance piece by Finnish dance artist and poet Wilma-Emilia Kuosa, which interprets the tragedy of her second poetry novel. The auto fictional work reveals the harsh truth from the point of view of the prisoner’s loved one. Cage Opera leads the audience to think about what happens to love when the other is in prison? The audience’s senses are tickled with a multi-artistic performance, where the poetry is embodied by means of jazz dance. The performance sensitizes with a personal approach that gathers to explore one’s vulnerability in a safe common space.
insidiously tickling my ear let’s be like before
Diving into you like you were just a wave of not knowing anything anymore
not talking about the past never finding out
let’s pretend the bump didn’t happen
that there was never any prison
and it would not have had any effect on me
Let’s perform the Cage Opera till the bars melt away
“The Cage Opera has made me, and the audience breathe the same air in terms of emotional tolerance, i.e. recognizing and naming emotions. It has been called an emotional storm that removes prejudices around a difficult topic. For me, Häkkiooppera is an opportunity to test how vulnerable I can be under the terms of the story. The tight dramatic arc allows a new kind of lightness in interpretation, and the choreographic world inspires to play with jazz dance. It has been amazing to experience how sensitized the audience is to experience the course of events. My solo has become a common space where it is safe to look at the emotions evoked by the themes and to be empowered by them. The Cage Opera is a new kind of experience every time, both for me and for the audience, on which it weaves itself to break out even more powerfully” Wilma-Emilia
Wilma-Emilia Kuosa’s works embrace broken souls. She’s a freelance choreographer, dancer, dance teacher and poet from Helsinki. Breaking borders between different subjects and fields of art ignites Wilma-Emilia. The Cage Opera is her fourth crossover performance project. It’s the first part of a trilogy of dance pieces based on her poetry novel’s.
Next Cage Opera shows
9.9.2023 VanDance Festival https://www.facebook.com/VanDanceFestival/
22.9.2023
Tanssin voima Festival /Power of Dance
Cage Opera trailer https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/833303517
Geisha Dance Concert.
Photo by Anita Herkman
Geisha dance concert concept is the second piece by Wilma-Emilia Kuosa and it’s a crossover collaboration between artists. The concept includes a dance performance created by Kuosa and a cappella ambient music by the singer Emma Salokoski. The piece will provide a mirror of the position of women in todays society. The piece will give it’s voice to equal human rights for women.
The piece will be presented along with a photo exhibition presenting dancing and body painting to raise awareness of the position of young women today. Emma Salokoski is giving her voice to the matter by composing all of the music for the piece with only her voice as her instrument.
Here is a piece from Wilma-Emilia’s interview about the piece:
“My inspiration for my second piece the Geisha dance concert came from profound frustration of feeling like nothing more than a tea room entertainer in a man’s world. I got tired of being treated like a young girl in professional context’s. I got sick of making coffee for people who want to abuse my skills and benefit from my talent. I just couldn’t take another meeting where I needed to tolerate comments about my ass before we could start an actual conversation about work. I started feeling like I was the Geisha of my own life. This is why I mirror todays perception of women with the geisha myth. That is how I have felt throughout my career – you better aim to please. I want to speak up for equality.
I started by drawing out these geisha figures in all of the positions I no longer wanted to be put it – silenced, subordinate and objectified. I have been researching human rights violations against women and I let my knowledge inspire me to name the geishas accordingly.
In the piece we create a safe space for people to think about human violations in an immersive art cradle and speak up for humanity.”
Previous performances:
Geisha dance concert premier took place at Kanneltalo on the 5th of September with two other performances on the 7th and 8th of 2018.
Geisha dance concert concept has presented it’s second demo at the Tanssi vieköön! dance fair at Helsinki, Finland, in Messukeskus on the 18.-19.8.2017.
Geisha dance concert concept has presented it’s first part
the living body painting featuring photo exhibition at Asematila, Kylätie 25 A 3 Huopalahti, 31.3.-2.4.2017.
Artists involved:
Concept: Wilma-Emilia Kuosa
Music: Emma Salokoski
Dance: Wilma-Emilia Kuosa
Video materials: Ellen Virman
Body painting: Maaren Heiskanen
Photography: Jean-Claude Néron
#danceyourheartoutsessions
Supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation, Kanneltalo and the city of Helsinki
Neglected Dance Concert.
Photo by Claudy Perini
Neglected dance concert piece is a performance by two artists concerned with the wellbeing of today’s neglected young adults. It is a duet of a jazz dance artist and of a vibraphone player. The piece gives its voice to a generation consumed by the absence of their community. It addresses the consequences of neglect and the bruises in the futures of this generation. Neglected dance concert piece is screaming for your presence, loving without judging and challenging you to listen to the real survival stories.
What are the effects of neglect?
The Xposure duo has collaborated with the Helsinki Missions Youth Crisis Center. Together they held a free workshop for young adults to enable them to express the experiences of neglect as artistical statements. The material gathered in the workshops is the key ingredient in the making of the piece. It brings their perspective of abuse as a part of a performance that aims to raise conversation over the situation of the young adults today.
Neglected dance concert piece is the first creation by the Xposure duo in four languages. Neglected premiered at the KokoTheater on the 15th of June 2017 with all together 6 performances. Duration 30min.
XposureDuo:
Wilma-Emilia Kuosa is a dance artist from Helsinki, who has specialized in jazz dance during her studies in France at the OFFJAZZ Dance Center in 2010-2013. Kuosa is the hostess and founder of the Jazz&Dance-improvisation club often performed at the Koko Jazz Club. She is a dance teacher and works actively as a freelance choreographer. To Wilma-Emilia her body is an instrument to embrace all of the destinies – the stories in need of light.
Arttu Takalo is a vibraphone player and a composer. His long lasting career has taken him to many different roles in the field of Finnish music. Arttu is well-known as an arranger, composer and producer. Takalo is the undeniable interpreter of the dark waters of the human psyche and his melodies will bring light to the lost souls.
Check out XposureDuo on Facebook
Jazz & Dance.
The club concept brings together the essentials of jazz in an improvised performance between the dancers and musicians built into a dance party with the audience! Jazz&Dance has enjoyed four seasons of pure jazz culture at the Koko Jazz Club where the Finnish world renowned jazz musicians have met the stars of the dance world on stage. The Jazz&Dance concept has been performed with Sami Saikkonen, Jarkko Lehmus, Virpi Juntti, Sami Vallius, Meeri Altmets, Satu Rinnetmäki, Iiro Näkki, Minna Tervamäki, Sini Länsivuori, Alpo Aaltokoski, Reija Wäre and Jyrki Karttunen together with it’s host dancer and creator Wilma-Emilia Kuosa. Each performance has been a true experience of the #danceyourheartoutsessions