Side Step Festival and Zodiak – Center for New Dance had the pleasure to host seven international artists in Helsinki in the beginning of February, as a part of the Visiting Artist Programme.
The 4-day programme gave the visiting artists an opportunity to meet local artists, attend performances & workshops and gain inspiration and expertise. The programme also offered a multitude of possibilities to engage with both international and Finnish presenters and promoters, providing essential networking opportunities, hopefully leading to future collaborations and opportunities.
Most of the Helsinki visit was centred around the Cable Factory, an old Nokia cable factory turned into a buzzing cultural hub, with multiple dance companies and organisations operating in the building. The visit’s host and the producer of Side Step Festival, Zodiak – Center for New Dance, has had its facilities at the Cable Factory since the mid-1990's.
The arrival day was reserved for a relaxed landing into the festival. Short opening drinks bought the visiting artist already together with the group of visiting curators who were attending a curated programme of their own on the same dates. The overlap of these two visits gave the Helsinki VAP encounter a unique flair; one does not always have to go to Central Europe in order to meet the European scene! The evening was spent in the charming company of Alma Söderberg’s Infinétude.
The next day started off with a joint session of the two visiting programmes, where the visiting artists were given a possibility to pitch their work to all the other international guests, as well as to a group of Finnish curators who joined the daily events at that point. After lunch the programme continued with performance demos by two Finnish choreographers, opening the space for further discussion and exchange of ideas around art. The day culminated in the energy-packed performance of STUCK, the choreographic debut of waacking icon Mounia Nassangar.
After spending the first full day with all the other international guests, the visiting artists were treated the next day to a workshop by Mounia Nassangar, alongside with an enthusiastic group of local dancers. The afternoon was dedicated to getting familiar with the performing arts scene in Helsinki, in the form of visits to Dance House Helsinki, WAUHAUS Arts Collective and Performance Centre Eskus. The art experience of the evening was provided by choreographer Elina Pirinen and Viirus Theater in the form of Pirinen’s work Doves and Bloods.
Final day brought even more networking possibilities, as the festival hosted a large Meet & Greet session for all the international guests as well as to the local artists who have been working in Zodiak’s co-productions in the last couple of years.
The rest of the day was spent following the festival’s programme, including a panel discussion, performance by Zora Snake and a screening of four Finnish art short films. The entire visit went out with a major bang at the festival’s Final Party. No smoke or millennial dance bangers were spared!
The artists visiting Side Step (and the VAP partners supporting their visit) were:
- Martina Apostolova, a theater and film actress from Sofia, Bulgaria (One Dance Festival)
- Marion Darova, a choreographer and performer from Sofia, Bulgaria (One Dance Festival)
- Toby Kassell, an artist who teaches his own methods of improvisation, creates and performs in Göteborg (Gothenburg), Sweden (Danscentrum Syd)
- Enad Marouf, a Syrian artist based in Berlin, working with choreography, video, text and installation (Tanz im August)
- Jérôme OUSSOU, a Lyon-based dancer and choreographer (Biennale de la Danse)
- Valgerður Rúnarsdóttir, an Icelandic dancer and choreographer (Reykjavik Dance Festival)
Tetiana Znamerovska, a Ukrainian choreographer, performer, and dancer, working partly in Wuppertal (New Baltic Dance)
Visiting Artist Programme (VAP) is an initiative uniting 23 leading contemporary dance festivals and organisations across Europe. VAP is set to foster creative exchange, artistic development, and valuable networking opportunities for early and mid-career dance artists. Visiting Artist Programme is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.
Photos: Annukka Pakarinen
