Satu Palokangas

I am a somatic activist, practitioner, facilitator and a pioneer in Ecosomatics, with over 30 years of training in movement, anatomy, improvisation, therapy and pedagogy.

EDUCATION IN SOMATIC METHODS:

I graduated in Participatory Arts and Somatic Research from Moving On Center in Oakland, California in 1999 which deeply influenced my understanding of somatic work as a necessarily participatory and inevitably political practice. Social somatics - somatics as a work for social and environmental justice - has been my guiding light ever since. It was at Moving On Center, where I begun to articulate my personal approach to somatic pedagogy, and to the practice that would later emerge as ecosomatics.

After MOC, I received further certifications in Dynamic Embodiment - Somatic Movement Therapy Training (DEP), Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analysis (CLMA) with Integrated Movement Studies and Somatic Movement Education (SME), Practitioner Program (CP), Infant Developmental Movement Education (IDME) and Teacher Training (CT) from the School for Body-Mind Centering®.

I have assisted Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen in several of her in-person workshops, including Embodying the Embryological Foundations of Movement (Berkeley, CA 2018), Embodying the Autonomic Nervous System (New York City, 2018) and Embodying Authenticity, Organicity, and Expression: Organs and Glands as a Foundation for Movement and Voice (Pomona, CA 2019).

EDUCATION IN HANDS-ON PRACTICES:

I am a trained and certified Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapist (BCST) and currently work as an assistant tutor with the Craniosacral Therapy Educational Trust in London. I’m also a certified Massage Therapist (CMT), with supplementary trainings in various touch practices, including myofascial bodywork (Anatomy Trains) and cadaver dissection with Gil Hedley.

PERFORMANCE STUDIES:

After spending several years studying yoga and meditation in India in the early 1990’s, I continued to study dance, performance and improvisation in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. I received my Masters degree in Live Art & Performance Studies from the Theater Academy of Helsinki, during which I begun my Ecosomatic research, creating participatory approaches for performance and pedagogy.

Teaching:

I have been teaching somatic movement practices since 1997.

In 2013 and 2014, I organized and co-directed the Moving On Center - School of Participatory Arts and Somatic Research Somatic Education and Socially Conscious Body modules with Carol Swann in Berlin. Since 2020 I’ve been leading my own somatic education training SOLU in Finland. It is one of the very few non-english speaking somatic programs in the world.

I also teach with the School for Body-Mind Centering® certification programs, and am on the faculty of Eino Roiha Institute's Dance Movement Therapy Training in Jyväskylä, Finland. I have been a visiting teacher in the Theater Academy of Helsinki since 2004, where I mentor students and teach eco/somatic approaches to performance, ecology, movement studies and pedagogy. At the moment I’m part of the faculty for Swedish speaking acting program, teaching Somatics and Ecosomatics for the BA and MA students.

grants and residencies:

I’ve been honored to receive two residencies and two substantial grants from the Kone Foundation - a one-year working grant for my ecosomatic research in 2017, following my residency on the same subject in 2014, and a three year collaborative grant for somatic research in 2019 with BMC® colleague Sarah Barnaby.