Tero Saarinen

Tero Kalevi Saarinen (born September 7, 1964, in Pori, Finland ) is a Finnish dance artist and choreographer, and Artistic Director of Tero Saarinen Company.

Saarinen has made an international career as both a dancer and choreographer.

As a choreographer Saarinen is known for his unique movement language that plays with balance and off-balance, combining influences from Butoh and martial arts to classical ballet and Western contemporary dance.

Saarinen's movement language has been described as “organic” and “inventive”, “like Butoh with wings.”

Saarinen was accepted for the ballet school in 1982, at the age of 17.

He had practised dance for a little over a year when he started at the school, while the other students were only 12 years old.

Saarinen studied at the National Opera Ballet School from 1982 to 1986.

He began his career at the Finnish National Ballet in 1985.

In 1985 he was taken on as a dancer at the National Ballet.

He was soon given soloist's roles and became one of the National Ballet's audience favourites, alongside Tommi Kitti.

His long international career as a soloist took off in 1988, after he won first prize at the Concours International de Danse de Paris.

In 1988 Saarinen won first prize in the contemporary category at Concours International de Danse in Paris with Jorma Uotinen's choreography B12.

After his victory in this prestigious competition, his career began to soar both in Finland and internationally.

Saarinen started creating his own choreographies, and began receiving invitations to appear in productions outside of the National Ballet.

He was a visiting soloist with the Helsinki City Theatre's dance group in 1989-1991.

Saarinen's first choreography was a Japan-inspired solo choreography Ondekoza (1989).

This was followed by another solo piece Kehtolaulu (1990), which addressed personal concerns; the hardships of taking responsibility, and growing pains.

Saarinen's first opportunity to make a group piece came when his former dance teacher Liisa Nojonen asked him to create a work for her company.

They then gave the result, More Milk, its premiere in 1991.

After his competition victory in Paris, Saarinen toured the world as a soloist.

Alongside Jorma Uotinen's solo piece B12 Saarinen got to interpret Déjà Vu, a solo piece by Murray Louis, which had previously only been permitted to be danced by the choreographer himself and Rudolf Nureyev.

With success, Saarinen found it increasingly hard to settle for the male roles and opportunities as a dancer offered by classical ballet.

Saarinen left the Finnish National Ballet in 1992 to seek new influences in Western Europe and Japan, where he studied traditional Japanese dance and Butoh from 1992 to 1993.

His breakaway came with the solo piece Takana (1992), a declaration of new beginnings and of leaving the past behind.

In the fall of 1992 his interest in the minimalistic expression of Japanese arts took him to Tokyo, Japan, to study various dance genres.

Saarinen studied traditional Japanese Kabuki theatre at the famous Fujima School of Tokyo, specializing in onnagata (female) roles.

This process first led to Saarinen taking a year off, and eventually resigning from his tenured post at the National Ballet in 1993.

At first Saarinen journeyed to Nepal for two months, where he travelled and studied Nepalese dance at the Kala-Mandapa Institute in Kathmandu, under the instruction of Rajendra Shestra.

Saarinen founded his own group, Tero Saarinen Company, in 1996.

In 2001 he was awarded the Finland Prize, and in 2005 the Pro Finlandia medal.

International recognition includes the international Movimientos Dance Prize for Best Male Performer, and the title of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, granted by the French government, both in 2004.

As a child Tero Saarinen was always involved in one hobby or another, at different times he played ice hockey or football, cross-country skied or trained in gymnastics.

In middle school he became inspired by the visual arts, and his other hobbies had to give way, until a dance school opened in Pori and Saarinen's father encouraged him to take up jazz dance.

This interest in visual arts can still be seen in Saarinen's choreographies: he has said he sees the stage as his canvas.

Saarinen was 16 when he started taking dance classes in Pori.

He soon developed a passion for dance, and his dance teacher Liisa Nojonen sent Saarinen to Helsinki to take the entrance exam for the Finnish National Opera Ballet School.

In 2008 The Finnish Cultural Foundation gave him an award for his achievements as an artist.

By April 2018, he has created 46 original works, many of them for other dance groups.

Nederlands Dans Theater, the French ballets of Lyon, Marseille and Lorraine, the Portuguese Ballet Gulbenkian, the Israeli Batsheva Dance Company, the Swedish Gothenburg Opera ballet, the Finnish National Ballet, and others, have featured Saarinen's works in their repertoires.

Saarinen has received numerous acknowledgements for his work as an artist.