Endless Waves: residential retreat in Suomenlinna, Finland (2025)

Welcome to the 7th annual Endless Waves 5Rhythms summer retreat on the island of Suomenlinna, just off the coast of central Helsinki. Join us for dancing wave after wave and unwinding back to yourself through movement and breath. 

Dance to clear your mind, free your body, and ignite your creativity. Dive into your movement, breath by breath, wave by wave, layer by layer, and allow yourself to be embraced by the dance. We’ll learn how to soften into our stuck places, allowing them to set the pace and teach us how to open. There will be time for silence, movement and rest, sharing and solitude, and magic in motion. We'll dance with the elements of earth and water indoors and outdoors, allowing ourselves to be inspired, supported, and nurtured by nature - the Baltic sea, the open sky, the wind, the smooth bedrock moulded and rounded thousands of years ago by the last ice age.

Suomenlinna is an 18th-century sea fortress and UNESCO World Heritage Site, with a bewitching combination of nature, cultural history, and stunning views over the urban Helsinki skyline. You can stay at Hostel Suomenlinna for a residential experience or arrange your own accommodation. Join us for an unforgettable dancing experience!

This workshop counts as 2.5 days of Waves towards the teacher training prerequisites.

LANGUAGE

This workshop is taught in Finnish with translation into English (please let us know in advance if you need translation). 

GETTING THERE

Flights to Helsinki airport. Easy transport to the centre from the airport (bus and / or train). There is a ferry every 20 minutes to Suomenlinna from Kauppatori (the Market Square). The venue is a 25-30 minute walk from the ferry terminal (the hostel is right next to the ferry terminal). See the public transport journey planner here.

SCHEDULES

Sunday 10 – 17

VENUE

Dance venue: Ruutikellari (an amazing 17th century building that was previously used to store gunpowder!), island of Suomenlinna Sea Fortress, a UNESCO World Heritage Site

Accommodation (optional): Hostel Suomenlinna

WORKSHOP TUITION

230€ early bird price, incl. 10% VAT (until 31 December 2024)

245€ early bird price, incl. 14% VAT (1 Jan - 17 May 2025)

275€ full price, incl. 14% VAT

(VAT rates are increasing on 1 Jan 2025 in Finland, so book your place by 31 Dec 2024 to enjoy the cheaper price!)

ACCOMMODATION IN HOSTEL SUOMENLINNA

Accommodation at the hostel is optional. You can also arrange your own accommodation elsewhere.

All rooms at the hostel are shared, with shared toilets and showers. The price includes 2 nights in the hostel and sheets and towels. Does not include meals. Breakfast can be ordered separately (or you can make your own).

Available rooms are for 2, 3, 4, 6 and 8 people, with some of them only for men or only women. Prices range from 68 – 98€ for 2 nights (10% VAT, available if you book by 31.12.24) or 71 – 101€ for 2 nights (14% VAT, available if you book on 1.1.25 and after). Please see our online booking system for exact prices.

REGISTRATION:

Book your place in the workshop: Online here

Book your accommodation: Online here

Please contact us if you have any trouble with either of these.

ABOUT THE TEACHER:

Karoliina Valontaival is the first accredited 5Rhythms® teacher in Finland. She’s been a passionate 5Rhythms dancer since 2005. She brought 5Rhythms® to Finland in 2012, trained as a Spaceholder in 2015, graduated as a Waves teacher in 2018, and has taught 5Rhythms full time since 2019. She is based in Helsinki and also teaches in other areas.

Karoliina creates a safe, grounded, and accessible space that is an invitation into the unique magic of your own dance. Her expertise in holding space and facilitating group processes is based on a wide variety of education and work experience in science, arts, and embodied practices. She studies psychology and her previous training also includes dance movement therapy, therapeutic breathwork, yoga teacher training, theatre, environmental education, and a Master's degree in Chemistry. Her inspiring music, sensitive soulfulness, powerful presence, and gentle and intuitive guidance will enable you to discover the joy and wisdom of your body and movement.

Breath in Motion

 “In order to understand the dance, one must be still. And in order to truly understand stillness, one must dance.” – Rumi

Breath in Motion

This workshop is an invitation into the rhythm of stillness, a landscape of movement meditation. Stillness is the last rhythm in the Wave of the 5Rhythms® practice, in which we allow ourselves to be moved from deep within, in dialogue with the breath. Stillness is the integration and sacred alchemy of all the 5Rhythms. It teaches us to move from and with our breath into a vast ocean of awareness and presence.

Often in our lives we can lose our ground and busy ourselves into a “human doing” or “human overthinking” mode. The dance of stillness is an opportunity to cultivate a felt sense of human being and breathing. The stillness rhythm teaches us to trust in our own wisdom, in our capacity to be present for and hold with compassion our whole human experience. It is an accepting space we can enter organically, after the other rhythms have released tension, brought us into embodied presence and emptied the body, heart, and mind.

This dance calls us to turn our curiosity into the space of being, exploring the formless form of stillness. We will move with and embody the invisible or the subtle layers in us, noticing what wants to unfold, to be felt, expressed and communicated. We allow the waves of movement of our body and emotions to rise and fall into the living mystery of now.

This workshop combines the Waves and Heartbeat levels of the 5Rhythms® practice. The Waves map will give you grounding and tools for exploring the many physical gateways into and expressions of stillness. The Heartbeat map invites you into experiencing and embodying the emotional flavours of stillness, and the ways compassion gives us space and freedom to feel and be all that we are.

“Having compassion starts and ends with having compassion for all those unwanted parts of ourselves. The healing comes for letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.” – Pema Chodron