1 Nov - 31 Dec 2025

Teo Ala-Ruona ( Finland )

At the ZK/U residency Teo Ala-Ruona is working on his upcoming performance Damnat, premiering in 2027 and co-commissioned by Zodiak – Center for New Dance in Helsinki.

Damnat is a performance for two performers and a chef. The work continues Ala-Ruona’s long-term artistic research into the potential of the performing body and the influence of sociopolitical norms on our relationship to the body. Damnat directs this research toward pathologizing and medicalized ways of thinking that categorically divide the body into parts, focusing in particular on the brain and the gut. Damnat asks how such categorizations shape one’s sense of self — and how they might be digested in order to move beyond categorizing thought.

Ala-Ruona’s background research delves into the history of the neurological pathologization of trans people, but the work ultimately expands to address broader questions of how we conceptualize the human. Architecturally, Damnat views the hospital as a modernist institution built to separate the “healthy” from the “diagnosed,” drawing inspiration from visits to twentieth-century hospitals.

During the residency, Ala-Ruona is writing the script, developing choreographic practices, and conducting contextual research. This includes studying the history of the first trans clinic in Germany, the Institute for Sexual Research, and visiting its former site in Berlin-Tiergarten. Ala-Ruona is also engaging with related archives and memorials in the city, including the Bundesstiftung Magnus Hirschfeld.