Height: 162 (5’3’’)
Hair colour: dirty blond
Eye colour: grey
Skills
Languages: Russian (native), English & Finnish (fluent), Spanish (intemediate), Japanese & Swedish (basic)
Performing: devising, improvisation, physical theatre, staged violence, performance art
Dance: butoh, contemporary, lindy hop, pole dance
Sports: rock-climbing (top rope card), calisthenics, acrobatics (basics), kayaking, surfing, cycling, swimming
Other: photography (vocational degree), audio/video editing (Adobe Audition and Premier), workshops facilitator, producer, translator (English/Finnish - Russian)
Katia Skylar
Actress (FIA) • Performance artist
Katia Skylar is an actress and performance artist. Katia enjoys interdisciplinary collaborations, and collective or directed creation balanced with independent solo work. Katia is a member of the Finnish Actors’ Union (Näyttelijäliitto) and the Dramatic Combat Finland/ Nordic Stage Fight Society. Bodily movement is the core language of Katia’s work, where movement interpretation of a spoken word is created with the physical theatre methods, butoh dance, and dramatic combat. In terms of dialogues, Katia likes to experiment with the multilingual approach.
On her artistic path, Katia developed a versatile set of skills and worked on a wide variety of projects including movement-based and multilingual theatre plays with stage combat scenes, devised pieces, short films, TV series, audiobooks and voice-over projects, parkour, contemporary and butoh dance performances, as well as live and online performance art pieces.
Katia’s deep interest lies in exploring body-mind as a whole, the connection between movement, self-being, and creativity, which was also a topic of her Master’s thesis research. Bodily movement is the core language of her projects, where movement interpretation of a spoken word is created with the physical theatre methods and dance. In terms of the dialogues, she likes to experiment with a multilingual approach.
Among the themes, she is interested in exploring body perceptions, limitations, gender roles and expectations, non-human entities, and finding beauty in the mundane brutality. Katia also enjoys working with site-specific and audience-driven projects.
Being a freelancer, Katia naturally developed her producer skills as well, which helps her organically juggle different projects, find collaborators, and funding opportunities for independent productions.
Kaita is also a co-founder of a podcast ‘Besedka s akcentom’ where together with the guests they discuss their devotion and passion in life.
Memberships
Selected Credits
Stage
Naiste Ballaadid | movement & choreography | dir. Marion Sellgal | EMTA Kontserdi- ja Teatrimaja (Tallinn, 2023)
Ladies (mini) | Mermaid-Medusa | butoh dance for guitar compositions, with a guitarist Yunjia Liu | Helsinki Butoh Festival (2022)
Amusing Tensions | devised by a GAP Lab working group | GAP summit (Helsinki, 2022) & Viinatehdas /Manilla /Regional Dance Centre of Western Finland (Turku, 2022)
Process KH | Inner voice | devised with Hanna Kalo | Blendi/ Ekata Theatre (Helsinki 2021)
Utopia (On Empathy) | Dancer | dir. Sari Palmgren/ Zodiak (Helsinki, 2021)
The Taste of Remembrance | Cristal woman | devised with a cellist Laura Martin | Helsinki Butoh Festival (2020)
Body Interrupted I & II | Tanya | dir. UtoUto duo | Höyhentämö theatre & Cultural Centre Caisa (Helsinki, 2018 & 2019)
TV
Luottomies (Wingman) | Border guard Polina | dir. Kari Ketonen | YLE Draama (Helsinki, 2020)
Performance art
The Baltic Waves | Co-created with Yunjia Liu (guitar) | Helsinki pop-up events | Hietsu beach (Helsinki, 2022)
Concordia | Dir. Ken Mai | Emma – Espoo Museum of Modern Art (Espoo, 2022)
Presence Y | Solo | Globe Art Point (Helsinki, 2021)
Descansos | Co-created with Maria Bayat | Quantum Critic, International Contemporary Art Exhibition (Helsinki, St Petersburg, 2020)
A Thin Red Line | Co-created with Maria Bayat | Edwina Goldstone Exhibition “MOTHER – a thin red line” | Gallery Myymälä2 (2020)
My Body. My Rebellion & Body Experience(d) | dir. UtoUto | Gallery Myymälä2 (Helsinki, 2019)
Dazed | dir. Petra Haapio | Festival Night of Arts & Eve’s Ribs Festival (Helsinki, St Petersburg, 2019)
Cosas y Tiempo | Co-created with Lucía Sánchez | Festival NUN Local (Vigo, 2018)
Music video
Bubble Gum Masha feat. Pris.Juno | dir. Masha Mistercat | Kino Euphoria (Helsinki, 2021)
Short film
Hjärnparasiten | Svetlana | dir. Tomas von Kantzow | Arcada graduation film (2022)
Voodoo | Alice | dir. Abiola Washington | Kino Euphoria (2021), Tampere Film Festival 2022
City People Shapes | model | dir. Silvija Bumbak | Kino Euphoria (2021), Tampere Film Festival 2022
Playground | Co-directed with Fiona Melzer | Kino Euphoria (2021)
Voice
Winged Stories - Ice Show | dir. Varvara Shumova | Kauniainen Ice Rink (2021)
Fairy-tales for girls | Audiobook | Femitales.pro/ Helsinki Open Waves (2020)
Training & Certifications
MA in Contemporary Physical Performance Making | Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, 2022-24
MA in Culture and Arts | Arcada University of Applied Sciences (Finland) & Escola Superior de Arte Dramática de Galicia (Spain), 2016-19
Intro to Motion Capture Acting | The Mocap Vaults/ Bones Studio (Poland), 2023
Nordic Stage Fight Society certifications: unarmed and rapier, 2021
Fighting for Screen | Nigel Boulton (Nordic Stage Fight Society), 2021
Linklater Voice Work | Tuuli Nilsson, 2021-22
Voice work | Amanda Stephens-Lee, Felicity Jurd (StageMilk Scene Club), 2020-21
Standard Southern British Accent | Luzita Fereday (StageMilk Scene Club), 2021
Acting In a Foreign Language | Cécile Orblin (Uniarts Helsinki’s Theatre Academy, Finland), 2020
Suzuki Method and View Points | Yuko Takeda, 2018
Butoh Dance | training mostly with Ken Mai, since 2018-