tender – workshop
Eevi Tolvanen
5-day workshop (09 – 13/05)
with a performance on Saturday 16/05* at the On Bodies Festival
Dates:
09 – 10/05 – 10:00 – 14:00
11 – 13/05 – 18:00 – 20:30
16/05 – evening performance
Dancehouse Lefkosia | 25 Parthenonos, Ayios Andreas, 1105, Nicosia
Open to queer and trans people, no experience with dance or performance
Free | Registration required, open until 01/05 https://forms.gle/nXiQ34CBownMyATXA
*Participation to 3-4 sessions is required if you wish to perform in the final performance
The workshop & performance ‘tender’ is organised in the framework of the On Bodies Festival 2026 by Dancehouse Lefkosia
Workshop description:
tender – workshop
a body tender with grief, a body shaped by intensity, a body trembling in closeness
tender is a workshop for queer and trans people to explore tenderness as something complex, powerful, and deeply human. Here, tenderness isn’t just soft or gentle—it can be fierce, messy, erotic, stubborn, and full of contradiction. It can ache, overwhelm, soothe, and surprise.
This is a space to be with your own community. A space for peer support, care, and connection—where you don’t have to explain yourself, and where different experiences can exist side by side.
We work through movement, performance art, voice and conversation. You don’t need any experience with dance or performance. We listen to what is already present in the body—shaking, holding, resisting, reaching. What happens when we stay with that sensation a little longer? When we are witnessed in it? When we witness others?
You don’t need any experience with dance or performance. There’s no right way to move, sound or be here—come as you are, with curiosity and openness. You can arrive quietly, awkwardly, curiously—everything belongs.
The workshop is connected to the performance hellänä – tender, directed by Eevi Tolvanen, and grows from the Queer Generations project, which centers queer and trans lived histories, intergenerational connection, and care as something personal, political, and collective. And, the ways we learn touch, closeness, and relation over time.
Together, we explore different states of tenderness: a body carrying grief, a body in intensity, a body softening in closeness. We explore how these states move between us—how they resonate, clash, and hold.
What becomes possible when we create space for this together? What shifts when tenderness is shared, witnessed, and allowed to be complex?
The workshop ends with a performance and a party at the On Bodies Festival, where we gather, share, and celebrate together.
Websites:
www.eevitolvanen.com
www.todellisuus..fi/sateenkaarisukupolvet/
www.todellisuus.fi/queer-dance-group
Instagram:
@eevitol
@queerdancegroup
@sateenkaarisukupolvet
@realityrescen
