Once the pandemic and ecological crisis have silenced the stage, you can hear the voices not yet heard.
Coming Stage is a four-year project funded by Kone Foundation. It seeks to make stages more diverse and establish more sustainable practices in the field of performance art. The project’s artists question norms related to the body, ability, language or experience and strengthen marginalised communities with their practice and work in close, dialogue-based collaboration with Baltic Circle.
Coming Stage was created from a need for slowing down processes and making the art field more diverse. It is reacting during exceptional times that hold space for questioning dominant norms and structures and the potential to create new culture. The project creates a continuum for the Black Lives Matter movement as well as an institutional desire to dismantle power structures, transphobia and ableism. It is Baltic Circle’s active agency to make structures more socially sustainable, less discriminating and more socially equal.
Along with the project, the festival invites three performance artists to work at the festival for two years. Each artist will gather a working group that is offered a work residence, two production spots in the festival programme, a producer and support for communications, marketing and content during two years.
The project’s artists, performances and working groups:
Geoffrey Erista
2021 UNDERTONE – a Proposal for Legal Loitering
Working group: Arhychy Alvaro Gomes, Caroline Suinner, Dennis Okoth, Ellen Virman, Eric Barco, Geoffrey Erista, Haliz Yosef, Jennifer Appleton, Joona Huotari, Laura Eklund Nhaga, Sunny Seppä and Tinttu Henttonen.
2022 UNDERTONE – Traces of Imminence
Working group: Geoffrey Erista, Eric Barco, Aju Jurvanen, Amita Kilumanga, Selma Kauppinen, Iiris Laakso and Mikki Noroila.
Isa Hukka
2022 inviting precarious perspectives
rampa associations: Isa Hukka, Ar Utke Ács, Hang Linton, Laura Lulika, Sunna Maaret, Aku Meriläinen and Sal Reis Trouxa. The performance won the Theatre Act of the Year -award.
2023 rampa landscape – lazy, late, absent
rampa productions: Isa Hukka, Aku Meriläinen, Una Auri, Juti Saari, Vishnu Vardhani Rajan and Sophia Mitiku.
Teo Ala-Ruona
2023 Raoni Muzho Saleh’s performance, workshop and lecture
2024 Parachorale
Working group: Teo Ala-Ruona, Even Minn, Tuukka Haapakorpi, Caroline Suinner, Anni Puolakka, Pauliina Sjöberg, Raoni Muzho Saleh, Teo Paaer, Sofia Palillo, Ami Karvonen, Spider Nykänen, Nour Ainasoja and Linda Lazarov.
