Photo: Tiziana Niespolo.

Baltic Circle Festival would like to say a big thank you to all amazing artists, staff, volunteers, audience and partners who made the festival happen!

The festival gathered 3 250 visitors this year, with over hundred of them coming from abroad.

Baltic Circle Festival produced three premieres. In addition it co-produced two other performances and the Show Your Sisu project.

Baltic Circle Festival’s free Festival Lounge was very popular this year as well. The additional programme included seminars, workshops, discussions, brunches and an installation.

The next Baltic Circle Festival will be held November 13-17, 2013. See you then!

JAKE & PETE’S BIG RECONCILIATION ATTEMPT FOR THE DISPUTES FROM THE PAST -teaser sec- from CAMPO on Vimeo.

Jakob (voice coach & a singer with The Germans) and Pieter (dancer, choreographer) Ampe are brothers, both born in Burundi, both with a lot of good and bad memories from their youth. The piece Jake & Pete’s Reconciliation Attempt for the Disputes from the Past  plays with the expectations of the spectator on the verge of catastrophe. The performance is sympathetic and fun,  it  involves extremes as well as subtleties, it became a study where the brothers examine to what extent they can raise each other’s game. Quite apart from this, there is something else that unites these brothers, namely their penchant for facile humour. They cannot wait to share it with the audience!

A creation for CONNECT CONNECT, international mentor program of Spielart Munich. Mentor Alain Platel.

LEFTOVERS FROM THE WAR teaser from LOFTW on Vimeo.

Baltic Circle Festival produces in co-production with TEKIJÄ – Theatre Touring Network project two residency periods. One of the upcoming performances being Leftovers from the War.The whole group is now in Finland and are staying in HIAP residency apartments in Suomenlinna.

Follow the process of Leftovers from the War on their blog.

Premiere 8.11. at the Finnish National Museum.

Live@Belly, photo Jonna Koivumäki

At the Baltic Circle opening club on Wed 7th November at KokoTeatteri will perform a Finnish singer-songwriter Aino Venna. Venna’s EP Waltz to Paris was released in the spring of 2012 and received a warm welcome. Venna, who has been compared to Leonard Cohen, flirts with the chanson and old rock n’ roll. Aino Venna’s debute album Marlene will be released on 26.10.

At the same night Baltic Circle Festival Lounge offers performance art in the spirit of DO TANK throughout the evening, for example Pia Lindy’s (choreographer, writer, live-art artist) solo called Oh Lightness. DJ duo is Wonderlust, two visual artists who combine music with elements of visual and performing arts.

Baltic Circle Festival Lounge offers every night stunning performances, amazing gigs and great DJ’s. Free entrance!

Listen to Aino Venna’s new single Devil Take Care, from the debute album Marlene.

From the last collaboration of Nya Rampen (FIN), Institutet (SWE) and the artist Markus Öhrn (SWE) was born the noted performance Conte dʼAmour (2010), co-produced by Baltic Circle, that has been presented in theaters and events around Europe, among others Avignon Festival of 2012. Today their new performance We love Africa and Africa loves us will have a premiere in Berlin, Ballhaus Ost theater.

We love Africa and Africa loves us continues from where Conte dʼAmour ended. The family that escaped the horrors of Joseph Fritzl ́s cellar is now searching for new defining borders. The solution is called Africa – the western concept of Africa – as something not yet civilized, wild, original and authentic  that defines the family and motivates it to structure anew. We love Africa and Africa loves us takes the audience on a journey into the heart of European darkness.

The performance will have its premiere in Finland on November at Baltic Circle Festival  Fri 9.11. 18:00 at Media Center Lume. Other performance on 10.11. & 11.11. 16:00.

Performed in English & German. Duration 2 h 40 min. Tickets 25 € / 15 € from Ticketmaster Finland (www.lippupalvelu.fi) and Q-teatteri (Q-teatteri.fi).

Produced by: Institutet, Nya Rampen, Baltic Circle, Ballhaus Ost, Garage X & Inkonst

http://ballhausost.de

http://www.nyarampen.fi

http://institutet.eu

Show Your Sisu project uses the format of a TV talent show and invites the public to explore what sisu has come to represent in the contemporary Finnish culture.

Sisu is something essential for understanding the Finnish character. Do any national characteristics exist anymore in a time when all meaning is individual? Show Your Sisu starts with a campaign where anyone create a video demonstrating why they have sisu. Contestants can do anything as long as they do it with sisu!

Everyone can follow the project on Show Your Sisu webpage www.showyoursisu.com, which is officially launched today as the project and competition starts. Public can vote and comment online all participating videos, both on the official website and through other forms of social media.

The live final of Show Your Sisu will take place at Baltic Circle Festival where the contestants with most votes will be invited. A panel of judges will crown the winning contestant as the Face of Sisu.

Show Your Sisu final on Baltic Circle Festival Wed 7.11. at 19:30 in Media Centre Lume

Produced by Baltic Circle in co-operation with Stadi.TV
Artists: DashNdem – Dash Macdonald & Demitrios Kargotis, curated by Aura Seikkula

Baltic Circle Festival, in collaboration with Theatre Touring Network project (TEKIJÄ), produces two residency periods. One of the upcoming performances being  Heidi Klein.

Heidi Klein is a performance about names, identities, families, cuckoo-clocks and alpine views. It is a personal story about the lives of Heidi Soidinsalo (formerly Lind) and Anni Klein (formerly Ojanen). Both artists changed their last names for this performance.

During the fall 2012 Klein (formerly Ojanen) and Soidinsalo (formerly Lind) are working four weeks (3.-21.9. & 1.-5.10.)  in the residency at the Centre for Practice as Research in Theatre in the city of  Tampere. Follow the creation process of the performance on the blog  (only in Finnish) The Adventures of Heidi Klein.  The premiere of Heidi Klein is 7.11. at the Baltic Circle Festival.

Artistic Residencies are a very significant production model for touring performances. When several partners have committed to the production, a functional network for touring is usually formed. Therefore residency as a production model prolongs the lifespan of a production, enables freelance artists to network and refine organizational skills, and thereby, strengthens the continuity of touring activities.

http://theadventuresofheidiklein.blogspot.fi/

DO TANK is an experimental program spanning a variety of different art forms, which invites artists to act on behalf of a world with a more diverse base of values, joint responsibility and sense of community. It is a series of different performances, spaces, processes, gatherings, installations, workshops and dialogues that are based on the theme of the event – the possibility of change in society through art.

DO TANK seeks not so much outspoken declarations as actions which might expand and open up the different horizons in which art can participate in building and changing society, above all on a personal and communal grass-root level. DO TANK seeks actions that lead to perhaps small bot nonetheless concrete steps. The project wishes to support local communities, building bridges between international artists and organizations and participate in building a new, active sense of working in the middle-ground between art and activism. The work is in no way related to party politics.

DO TANK spawned from an idea to create a space where artists react with concrete actions to the social and political challenges of their societies and global environments. The First DO TANK was held in Munich from Nov. 18th to Dec. 4th 2011 as a part of the international Spielart Festival. Satu Herrala works as the curator for the event together with Angelika Fink, the artistic director of Pathos München.

Read Satu Herrala’s Curator’s statement

Follow the projet:

http://dotankhelsinki2012.blogspot.fi

www.facebook.com/toDOTANK

Baltic Circle International Theatre Festival 7.-11.11.2012

Ant Hampton & Tim Etchells (UK): The Quiet Volume / DashNdem (UK): Show Your Sisu / Heine Avdal & Yukiko Shinozaki (NOR / JAP): Field Works –hotel / Todellisuuden tutkimuskeskus & Club Real (FIN / GER & AUT): The Other / Lind & Ojanen (FIN): Heidi Klein / Jakob & Pieter Ampe (BEL): Jake & Pete’s Reconciliation Attempt for the Disputes from the Past / Kaja Kann & Juha Valkeapää (EST / FIN): It seems a good place to build a house / Public Movement (ISR): DO TANK Debriefing Session Helsinki / Nina Larissa Bassett (DEN) / Ivo Briedis (LAT) / Elin Petersdottir (ISL) / Janne Saarakkala (FIN): Leftovers from the War / Markus Öhrn & Institutet & Nya Rampen (SWE / FIN): We love Africa and Africa loves us / Maija Hirvanen (FIN): Our Social Democratic Bodies / Sublimi (ISL): Abyss / Búmm Bang (ISL) / Barbara Balsei (GER) / Mårten Spångberg (SWE): DO TANK Saunalectures / ONGOING Reality Research Center (FIN): metaFestival / DO TANK Sleep for Africa / Pia Lindy (FIN) / INTERIORS