Anneli Kurki
How to visit Finland
The relationship of Finnish theatre with internationality is ambivalent to say the least. Theatre folk are particularly internationally oriented. They visit foreign festivals, study on international courses, with even basic training often been sought abroad.
Touring productions within and without Finland, however, remain insignificant. Finnish dance and puppet companies travel the most, while only around ten dramatic theatre companies go abroad each year. Visiting productions generally aim for festivals. At other times, interesting foreign visitors are rarities.
The language barrier is not the only problem for visits to Finland. Almost everyone understands English, and there are also plenty of people who speak the other major languages. Finnish audiences do not expect simultaneous interpretation even of plays in less familiar languages. They meekly read plot summaries and are even more grateful if supertexts are provided. They have, after all, not grown accustomed to seeing dubbed productions even at the cinema.
Where to visit
Even in small Finnish towns there is a theatre, in larger conurbations more than one. It is, however, difficult for a visiting company to appear in one. Each theatre has its own permanent ensemble, which does not easily give up time to visitors. Funding a visit means a loss to the theatre’s own budget, and that is understandably unattractive. Generally an external organiser and source of funding is required before a visiting production can be considered. An exception is formed by the visitor exchanges arranged between twinned towns or, for example, finds made abroad by the theatre director himself. The main national auditoria, the Finnish National Theatre and the Swedish-language Svenska Teatern, have brought more visiting productions to their stages than any other theatres.
The Finnish National Theatre is a member of the European Theatre Union. Helsinki City Theatre and TTT-Theatre of Tampere are members of the European Theatre Convention.
In recent years a few ‘visiting theatres’ have been founded. These have no ensemble of their own, and their role is to present both Finnish and foreign touring productions.
The Centre for Cultural Affairs of the City of Helsinki are a number of auditoria that can be used by visiting companies. The Savoy Theatre, in the very centre of the city, is the oldest of them. Its programme is very broad, including musicals, concerts, dance and theatre. Among the draws of the past year have been Argentine tango performances.
The Alexander Theatre, also in the centre of the city, is the old opera house. When the Finnish National Opera finally moved into its new building, the plan was for the Alexander Theatre to become a dance theatre. Now, however, it is open to visiting productions of all the performing arts. A festival of Asian arts has been held there in springtime, and it has also welcomed both dance and lyric theatre. It has often functioned as an additional auditorium for the city’s other theatres.
The Centre for Cultural Affairs also has a number of community centres outside the centre which are suitable for theatre and dance productions. The best-known of them is the Stoa cultural centre in eastern Helsinki. From the point of view of theatre productions, Malmintalo and Kanneltalo are also of interest.
A new location for visiting productions was acquired almost accidentally with the new museum for contemporary art, Kiasma. A space originally planned as an auditorium has proved to be a new Helsinki theatre with first-class technical equipment. The theatre is able to host theatre, dance, film, multimedia, music and video art.
Last May, Kiasma opened with Splayed Mind Out by the video artist Gary Hill and choreographer Meg Stuart. The autumn programme included three Finnish premières of cutting-edge theatre: Aurinkoteatteri (‘Sun theatre’) with Seksuaali (‘Sexual’), Marja Silde and Tuuja Jänicke with Näyttelijä (‘The actor’) and Juha-Pekka Hotinen and the media artist Pekka Niskanen with Tiedotustilaisuus (‘Press conference’). Kiasma has also co-produced productions with various festivals.
Another newcomer is the Avoimet Ovet (‘Open doors’) theatre founded by the actress Liisi Tandefelt. The theatre is suitable for small-scale theatre and music productions. The theatre space is linked with a tearoom where the audience can gather before and after performances.
The neighbouring city of Espoo has had a theatre, Espoo City Theatre, which welcomes visiting productions for about ten years. The theatre has two stages and also stages its own productions. This year’s programme has included improvisation evenings and the Finnish musical Tukkijoella. The theatre presents primarily productions from professional theatres elsewhere in Finland; there have been between three and six foreign visits a year. This spring’s only foreign guest is the Deutsches Schauspielhaus from Hamburg.
Festivals remain the most important channel for bringing foreign productions to Finland. In what follows, I shall mention only theatre festivals, although theatre is also sometimes present at music events too.
The biggest and best-known of Finland’s theatre festivals is the Tampere International Theatre Festival. For as much as thirty years it has been the most important event of the year for both professionals and audience. For a week in August, the entire city and its dozens of auditoria are filled with performances. The include the most interesting Finnish productions and a wide selection from abroad: theatre, performance, street theatre. Next summer, visitors from South America, Britain, Germany and Russia, among others, are promised.
Helsinki has long wanted a theatre festival of its own. Since the 1970s, theatre has not been high on the list of the Helsinki Festival. A few years ago, the Continuing Education Centre of the Theatre Academy developed a new concept for an international festival. Helsinki Act – Changing Forms of the Performing Arts focuses on new forms and links performances thematically with a symposium and workshops held during the festival. This year’s theme is ‘The Degrees of Reality’, and performers include Jonathan Burrows (UK), Boris Charmatz (France), Bak-truppen (Norway) and Needcompany (Belgium).
Northern Finland has its own, highly individual Bomba Festival, which presents performances of Finno-Ugrian culture in an international theatre festival programme. The theme this year will be town and village, with a programme stressing children’s and youth culture. International guests will come to Nurmes from Hungary, the Russian republic of Mari, Estonia, Russia and Sweden.
There are three festivals of children’s theatre in Finland: in the northern coastal city of Oulu in February, the Oulu Children’s Theatre Festival, in the small factory town of Kuusankoski in May, the Kuusankoski International Children’s Theatre Festival, and in August the Häme Castle Children’s Festival. This year, in addition, there is an international Puppet Festival in Tampere in honour of the Year of the Puppet.
In a country with hundreds of amateur dramatic societies there are, of course, a number of amateur theatre festivals. Of these, two are in the habit of inviting the occasional foreign production: Mikkeli’s Working People’s Stage Days and Seinäjoki’s Amateur Dramatics Festival.
And finally, the best advice if you want to bring your production to Finland. Get to know a Finnish theatre or festival director. Invite him or her to see your production. If you send letters, faxes or videos, there is only a vanishingly small chance that someone will be inspired by them.