The 21st international theatre festival, Baltic Circle, will be held in Helsinki from 22–30 November 2024. This year’s programme features premieres, workshops, discussions, a sound piece, and a seminar focused on future power.
The 2024 festival programme focuses on listening to and observing parallel realities. Mia Takula and Ellen Virman’s audio piece Hevosen silmin (in Eng. Through the Eyes of a Horse) takes listeners on a journey into a horse’s experience of the world, inviting them to evaluate what its life is like in the reality defined by humans. A fresh lens is also used to examine the world in Väylä 45 (in Eng. Highway 45), a walking performance by Sebastian López–Lehto, Maarit Utriainen, and Riikka Vuorenmaa, where the focus is on the everyday urban space and its transformation. This piece on urban planning invites the audience to look more closely at the details of familiar surroundings and the various layers of time and action that unfold from them.
Dreams, daydreams, and everyday utopias are explored in Hibernation, an installation piece by the m2f2m collective, which transforms the Kirpilä Art Home into an archive of trans dreams. Drawing from personal and trans community archives, Hibernation asks: What do trans people dream of? How do trans people archive themselves? How is being trans connected to dreaming and imagining?
Teo Ala-Ruona’s new piece Parachorale also stirs the subconscious, exploring the feeling of inner incompatibility. The performance challenges the othering gaze through which trans bodies are viewed in society as exceptional. It asks how private this experience really is, and how many people truly feel at home in their own skin? Parachorale continues Ala-Ruona’s series of works that deal with the paranormal potential and psychosomatic extremes of trans bodies (previous works include Lacuna and Enter Exude).
Additionally, Play Rape, a piece by Anna Paavilainen that shook the stage and the scene at the National Theatre in 2014, celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. To mark the occasion, the Baltic Circle festival will present an updated drama reading Play Rape 2.0, followed by a discussion that dives into the themes of the play and whether or not the world has changed since #MeToo. The final weekend will be crowned by Homo Line, a musical theatre performance based on the comic by Edith Hammar, which premiered at the Theatre Academy in 2023. Homo Line takes the audience on a nostalgic cruise across the boundless seas of queerness. The music for the performance was composed and arranged by Nicolas Rehn.
This year, Baltic Circle’s programme highlights artists whose work challenges prevailing norms and paves the way for a more diverse future. In addition to the performances, the festival will explore the themes of power and the future in a seminar, the details of which will be announced in October. An updated programme of discussions, workshops, and club events will also be announced later.
Festival programme in order of performances:
- m2f2m: Hibernation
22/11, 23/11 and 24/11, Kirpilä Art Home - Ellen Virman & Mia Takula: Listening event – Hevosen silmin
23/11 at 13:00, Iiris Centre. The listening event will be followed by a discussion with the creators and the Blind Listening Jury. - López-Lehto, Utriainen, Vuorenmaa: Väylä 45
25/11 at 14:45, 26/11 at 08:00 and 14:45, 27/11 at 08:00, Metsälä Area - Anna Paavilainen: Drama Reading – Play Rape 2.0
28/11 at 17:00, Bar Tÿpo. A discussion will follow the reading. - Teo Ala-Ruona & group: Parachorale
28, 29, and 30/11 at 20:00, Energy Hall at the Museum of Technology. A discussion will follow Friday’s performance. - Hammar – Rehn: Homo Line
30/11 at 18:00, Kanneltalo