Kai Lehikoinen

Introduction

Kai Lehikoinen (MA, PhD) is Professor of Dance Pedagogy at the Theatre Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki, where he leads the Master's Programme in Dance Pedagogy.

His research examines how dance and the arts can strengthen democratic participation, advance cultural well-being, and contribute to more just and sustainable futures. Situated at the intersection of dance pedagogy, socially engaged art, cultural well-being, and higher arts education, his work explores how artistic and arts pedagogical practices shape participation, negotiate power, and respond to societal change. Across his career, his research has increasingly converged around questions concerning the societal role of the arts and the responsibilities of arts education in times of social change.

Lehikoinen trained as a dance pedagogue at the University College of Dance (Danshögskolan), Sweden, before completing an MA in Dance Studies and a PhD at the University of Surrey, UK. Alongside his research, he has held several academic leadership positions, including Deputy Director of the ArtsEqual research initiative and Director and Professor of the CERADA Research Centre. He represents the University of the Arts Helsinki on the Board of the European League of Institutes of the Arts (ELIA), serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Dance Education, is Series Co-editor of Critical Studies in Dance Leadership and Inclusion (Palgrave Macmillan), and sits on the advisory board of the Nordic Journal for Arts, Culture and Health.

His research can be understood through three interconnected strands. The first examines dance pedagogy, power, and participation. Since his doctoral dissertation, Stepping Queerly? Discourses in Dance Education for Boys in Late 20th-Century Finland (2003), he has explored how educational practices both reproduce and challenge social inequalities. He has contributed to the development of dance pedagogy as a critical, research-based field and to the advancement of dance analysis as a conceptual framework for understanding dance. His book Tanssi sanoiksi: Tanssianalyysin perusteita (Putting Dance into Words: Foundations of Dance Analysis) is regarded as one of the foundational works of Finnish dance analysis.

The second strand focuses on socially engaged art and cultural well-being. Drawing on human rights perspectives and the capability approach, he investigates how cultural rights and people's capabilities to engage with the arts shape the conditions through which cultural well-being is realised. This line of research culminates in his 2026 Routledge book Creativity, Society, and the Role of Socially Engaged Art in Higher Arts Education, which develops a conceptual framework for understanding socially engaged art as a field of study within higher arts education.

The third strand addresses the futures of higher arts education. His research examines how arts education can respond to ecological, technological, cultural, and societal transformations while preparing students for increasingly complex professional environments. In the Erasmus+-funded FAST45 project, he collaborated with European colleagues to develop arts-based futures workshops and scenarios for exploring the long-term development of the arts, higher arts education institutions, and society. He has also been actively involved in advancing a futures-oriented approach to research and teaching in dance pedagogy.

Taken together, Lehikoinen's work demonstrates how dance pedagogy and the arts can operate as forms of social practice by widening opportunities for participation, advancing cultural well-being, and strengthening the capacity of higher arts education to respond creatively and critically to societal transformations and sustainable futures.

More information:

Lisätietoa:

linkedin.com/in/kailehikoinen

https://kailehikoinen.academia.edu/

http://www.artsequal.fi/fi

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kai_Lehikoinen

ORCID ID: 0000-0002-8198-5854