Photo: Lars Larsson
Kukkia is a performance group of the artists Karolina Kucia and Tero Nauha. A book about their work and the themes related to it will be published during the Baltic Circle 2011 Festival. Along with the artists, this publication includes texts from Akseli Virtanen (Future Art Base, Aalto University), mediaphilosopher Franco Berardi and poet Jonimatti Joutsijärvi, among others. These writers are taking part in the book release discussion at the festival.
Photo: Kadonnut kaupunki presents: Elämyspuisto Turku 2011 / Salainen retki (a secret journey). In the picture Jonna Wikström and the spectator. Photo by Tomi Hurskainen
A panel debate on the significance and responsibility of the role of an actively participating audience member in a contemporary theatre performance. What does the spectator’s shift into an experiencing part of the performance say about the state of art, society and mankind? Why is a more actively participating audience in demand? Why does the audience on one hand call for more tailored, active and individualistic experiences and on the other hand also resist them? We will especially focus on the question of the experiencing audience’s responsibility in a performance and whether or not it exists.
The debate will be conducted by Janne Saarakkala.
Panelist speakers: Tellervo Kalleinen, Kimmo Modig, Maija Hirvanen and Maria Säkö
Picture: Pekko Koskinen
This operation attempts to steal the fabric of one performance to create another. The theft is conjured by you, our assistants in this crime of fiction.
In order to perform this theft, we reframe our target, a piece called more than enough by Doris Uhlich, kidnapping it to a different context. With the frame we build, the piece will have connotations beyond itself, reasons that stem from our fabrications and falsehoods. In other words: we will lie and you will interpret.
Staged Larceny is a part of Reality Research Center’s year-long Theft-project, which explores the possibilities of theft as an art form.
Pekko Koskinen is a designer of reality games who also plays around with various forms of art. His works include fictional religions, ways of living and made-up societies among others. Most of these operations place within life at large, outside the traditional representative formats. He’s a member of Reality Research Center that is a performing arts laboratory based in Helsinki, Finland. Consisting of artists from different fields, RRC questions both common and personal senses of reality and creates events that are simultaneously works of art and tools of research.
Producers: Reality Research Center & Baltic Circle
CREDITS
Main Suspect (Forgery, Kidnapping and Pilfery): Pekko Koskinen
Partner in Crime: Gabriel Widing
Nya Rampen takes hold of the most renowned plays of all time, taking a look at mortal sins trough Shakespeare’s tragedies while wearing panty-hose. What does Nietzsche’s famous quote “God is dead” mean to the modern world that is struggling in a chaos after the humanistic era?
Worship! examines the characteristic human need to believe in and belong to something, be it a religion, an ideology or art. Nya Rampen ponders why fiction such as Shakespeare’s tragedies still reaches audiences. Do we need stories in order to understand reality?
Nya Rampen was founded 12 years ago in Helsinki. The group is led by founding members Elmer Bäck, Rasmus Slätis and Jakob Öhrman together with producer Elin Westerlund. Nya Rampen challenges preconceptions about what theatre should be through seeking new means of expression from other fields of art. Having toured European theatre festivals, the group has achieved international acclaim for their unique and uncompromising expression. Baltic Circle Festival 2010 presented Conte D’Amour, a co-production of Nya Rampen and Swedish theatre group Institutet. The performance won the best off-theatre award at Impulse Theatre Festival in Germany 2011.
Producers: Nya Rampen, Baltic Circle & Nordwind Festival
Supported by: Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland, Konstsamfundet, Helsingin Säästöpankkisäätiöt & City of Helsinki Cultural Office
CREDITS
Written by: Shakespeare / Öhrman
Directed by: Jakob Öhrman
Cast: Elmer Bäck, Cris Af Enehielm, Joonas Heikkinen, Iida Kuningas (TeaK), Rasmus Slätis, Sara-Marie Soulié, Marcus Groth
Music: Andreas Catjar
Musicians: Mattias Leo Senada Weiss, Fabiana Striffler
Light: Jens Leeb-Lundberg
Trailer and Films: Marcus Öhrn & Natasja Loutchko
Scenography: Lars Idman (Aalto University)
Costume: Lisa Martelin, Natalia Mustonen
Stagefight instructor: Oula Kitti
Photo: Tomi Nuotsalo
WORLD PREMIERE!
Photo: Dieter Hartwig
MADE IN RUSSIA is a hot, post-communist war battle of eastern and western cultural clichés. The latest work created by dancer Andrei Andrianov and choreographer Oleg Soulimenko settles for no less than a breakthrough in the western performance and art market. But before that they reflect on their ever-changing artistic and personal development through songs, stories and styles of dancing.
This self-ironic performance reveals their so far strictly confidential relationships with two famous characters of the European and Russian art scene. An essential role in the standup-ish performance of Andrianov and Soulimenko is played by the intellectual super-father from the west, French film director Jean-Luc Godard, and the flagship prima ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, highly appreciated by the Soviet regime.
“The performance can hardly be topped in wit and ingenuity and masterly plays with clichés and prejudices. A direct hit!” (Helene Kurz, Wiener Zeitung, April 25, 2009)
In 1993 Andrei Andrianov and Oleg Soulimenko founded their dance performance duo named Saira Blanche Theatre. They have performed in numerous festivals including Vienna, Amsterdam, Moscow, Berlin, New York and Stockholm. After a break that lasted for years, having toured the world with international artist collectives, they have continued working together since 2007.
A co-production by Oleg Soulimenko/Vienna Magic, brut Wien, artblau-Tanzwerkstatt Brunswick, Szene Salzburg
In collaboration with Dance Agency, TsEkh, Moscow & Sophiensaele Berlin
Supported by the Cultural Department of the City of Vienna, the Austria Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture, the State of Lower Saxony & Kultur Kontakt Austria
Guest performance appearance is supported by European Comission & Austrian Embassy in Finland
CREDITS
Written and directed by: Oleg Soulimenko, Andrei Andrianov
Cast: Oleg Soulimenko, Andrei Andrianov
Video appearance: Dasha Andrianova and Alevtina Golubeva
Dramaturgy: Judith Helmer
Artistic advice: Robert Steijn
Translation: Martin Jandl
Stage set and costume: Anke Philipp
Light design: Bartek Kubiak
Video editing and photography: Elena Tikhonova
Production management: Nicole Schuchardt / brut Wien
Fat Bastards is a girls’ attempt to grasp the essence of ice-hockey through an off-the-wall lecture. It is a do-it-yourself performance about passion, repulsion and creative destruction. “Football is erotic, ice-hockey is porn.”
In the spring of 2011 girls are peaceful and happy. Then Finland wins the Ice hockey World Championship. Again. This time the girls feel they are somehow left out. They are determined to become a part of the ice hockey race and inhabit the mythical superhero of a world champion. Thus begins a Eurodance journey to the year 1995, when Finland won the previous championship.
Inspired by the hysteria of Finland’s world championship in 1995 and Quentin Tarantino, the girls build a happily frustrated, home-made world of ice hockey. Lovingly they bastardize the national sport of Finland. As is often said, ”If you can’t beat them, join them”.
Anni Ojanen, having graduated from the Theatre Academy Helsinki in 2009, and Hili Iivanainen, graduated in 2010, have worked in several international productions. Ojanen has worked for example in the Von Krahl theatre in Tallinn and Iivanainen as a director and actress in several theatres in Chicago. In the fall of 2011 Ojanen is also working as a director for the Finnish National Theatre. In Finland Iivanainen has directed performances in the city theatres of Turku and Kotka, and Theatre Telakka.
Producer: Baltic Circle
Supported by: Finnish Cultural Foundation, TINFO – Theatre Info Finland, Theatre Academy Helsinki
CREDITS
Written and directed by: Ojanen & Iivanainen
Cast: Ojanen & Iivanainen
Video: Joonas Tikkanen
Photos: Andrea Brandt
Other artists involved: Dorte Olesen, Jouni Tauriainen, Jenni Kääriäinen, Siru Kosonen, Kirsi Gum, Emily Cheeger, Juho Ala- Juuma, Tuomas Timonen
WORLD PREMIERE!
The project Drama Reloaded: Yerma studies the relationship between drama and reality. The material for the project is Yerma, a play written by Federico García Lorca in 1934. It tells the story of a woman driven to insanity by childlessness. In this project by Katariina Numminen, García Lorca’s tragic poem comes face to face with everyday reality. A team studies the play in different contexts and with different people – people who are touched by, or have a special relationship to infertility. This process gives rise to a performance that brings drama off stage and into the midst of everyday life.
Katariina Numminen is a dramatist and director from Helsinki, in whose work sound, memory, reality and documents play an important role. She works amongst others in Vyborg Artistic Theatre and Reality Research Center. Drama Reloaded: Yerma is a part of the RRC Reloaded program of Reality Research Center.
Producers: Reality Research Center & Baltic Circle
CREDITS
On stage: Niina Hosiasluoma, Antti Jaakola and Kaisa Niemi
Dramaturgy and direction: Katariina Numminen
Assistant director: Venla Korja
Set design and costumes: Paula Koivunen
Light design: Max Wikström
Photos: Jack Balance
WORLD PREMIERE!
Photos: Andrea Salzmann
In more than enough Doris Uhlich asks herself and her audience how the body can become a trademark and what this means. Doris Uhlich – who is often called a “corpulent dancer” in newspaper reviews – questions the importance of the outer mantle and the meat underneath the skin. How dominant is the outer image of a body within the reception of a dance performance? Is there such a thing as the perfect body for dance? And finally: Who is beautiful and who isn’t?
In live interviews over the phone Uhlich talks to people whose bodies don’t meet the beauty standards and who have therefore become trademarks. Do these people create such trademarks by themselves or do others do this for them? The Baroque epoch with its urge for overabundance creates the basis for a bodily and textual discussion of flesh and opulence.
Doris Uhlich has taught contemporary dance in several academies, including the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. Uhlich has been directing her own projects since 2006 and her works have been performed in numerous performing arts venues and festivals across Europe. The Austrian Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture awarded Uhlich’s work SPITZE with the recognition award for dance in 2008.
Producers: Doris Uhlich, brut Wien, Les Subsistance / Lyon
Supported by: Cultural Department of the City of Vienna & Austria Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture
Guest performance appearance is supported by: European Commission & Austrian Embassy in Helsinki
CREDITS
Choreography: Doris Uhlich
Cast: Doris Uhlich, Alice Chauchat and guests
Dramaturgy: Andrea Salzmann, Judith Staudinger
Production: Marlies Pillhofer, Christine Sbaschnigg
Technician: Geri Pappenberger
Susiklubi will create a party installation for Baltic Circle Festival Lounge. The Susiklubi collective has refused to share any information about the event. Come anyway.
Susiklubi has been making genre-crossing club events in Helsinki, and once in Hanko, since 2009. The audience is occasionally rewarded, occasionally punished. Sometimes they get to choose between the two.
Photos: Otto Donner
Photo: Elisabeth Hiberg
“Music can change people’s lives.” − Major Hilding Runar of the Norwegian Army
“If you play heavy metal for 24 hours, your brain and body functions start to slide, your train of thoughts slows down and your will is broken. That’s when we come in and talk to you.” − Sergeant Mark Hadsell of the US Army
“Musical notes and rhythm were first acquired for the sake of charming the opposite sex.”
− Charles Darwin
“To be in combat is worth the three months without sex.” – NATO Soldiers in Afghanistan
Sound of Freedom is a performance about the physics of sound, the rhetoric of weapon production and acoustic bazookas. Premiered at the Ultima Festival in Norway in September 2011.
Supported by: Culture Council Norway & Freedom of Expression Foundation
DJ for the evening DJ Vauvaukki
