Katia Skylar is a performance maker, actress (FIA), butoh dancer, and fight performer based in Helsinki and well connected internationally. Katia’s artistic projects are grounded in research processes, while her scholarly and pedagogical work draws from her background in the performing arts and photography. Her recent body of work prominently explores themes of listening and empathic communication in the forms of site-specific performances and immersive audience experiences, such as
Mundane.Magic, a collective performance-journey (Tallinn/Viimsi 2024),
Concordia, a gentle butoh intervention in EMMA, Espoo Museum of Modern Art (2022), Presence Y, a site-specific performative research of presence (Helsinki, 2021 & Peniche, Portugal/ Compostival, 2022). Katia values horizontal collaboration in non-hierarchical settings, she creates through devising, tender border-crossing, radical listening, multi-linguality and body-driven approaches. She also facilitates movement and spoken word workshops.
Katia’s artistic projects have been funded by TAIKE (Arts Promotion Centre Finland), the Cities of Helsinki and Espoo, the Finnish Institute in Estonia (pARTir initiative – NextGeneration EU), by the European Union and the Goethe-Institut (Culture Moves Europe).
As a performer and an actress, Katia has featured in dance, theatre and performance art productions, short films, tv-series and audio projects. She also co-hosted a podcast called Besedka s Akcentom / Беседка с акцентом (2019-2022).
Katia holds an MA in Contemporary Physical Performance Making (Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre) and another in Culture and Arts (Arcada University of Applied Sciences, Finland/ Escola Superior de Arte Dramática de Galicia, Spain). She is a member of the Finnish Actors’ Union (Näyttelijäliitto/ International Federation of Actors) and the Nordic Stage Fight Society.
