Beyond the festival: Expanding Perspectives on Sustainability in the Performing Arts
Finnish puppetry network Aura of Puppets is hosting a seminar on current and future strategies for sustainability in the performing arts. The seminar takes place during Turku International Puppetry Festival.
The event is also live streamed and can be attended via IMPULSE! -project's Youtube.
Time: Friday 8 November 2024 at 15:00–17:00 EET
Place: Tehdas Theatre, Itäinen Rantakatu 64, Turku FI
The event will approach this theme from the perspective of international festivals that host performing artists. The focus is on what is happening in-between the events we call festivals; what kind of collaboration is needed to build long-term collaboration between artists and organisations. How to make space for projects that enable social impact beyond the spectacle?
At the start of the seminar, project coordinator Jesper Dolgov will provide an overview of the IMPULSE! initiative and introduce the soon-to-be-published handbook on sustainable touring, which is part of the project. The seminar will then explore the theme of broadening the impact of festival collaboration, featuring invited speakers Hanna Parry, Artistic Director of the Baltic Circle Festival (Helsinki, Finland), and Anni Sundbacka, Managing Director of the New Performance Turku Biennale. Following these introductions, there will be an open discussion session for all participants, facilitated by TIP-Fest Artistic Curator Ishmael Falke.
The seminar is followed by a networking event in the foyer of Tehdas Teatteri, including small snacks and drinks, welcome!
Attending the event
The seminar is for artists, producers, artistic & residency directors, funding organisations and any performing arts professionals interested in sustainable touring and working. The focus is on organisations and festivals.where it will be visible also afterwards as a recording.
The seminar and networking event will take place during the Turku International Puppetry Festival on Friday, 8 November 2024, at 15:00 EET, at Tehdas Theatre, Manilla.The event will be live streamed to IMPULSE! Project's Youtube account where it will be visible also afterwards as a recording.
8 November 2024
About our guests
Hanna Parry
Hanna Parry works as Artistic Director for Baltic Circle – International Theatre Festival from 2020. In her work Parry creates spaces for social and ecological urgencies; narratives and energies that potentially create change. Since 2017 she also works together with indigenous Skolt Sámi theatre director and activist Pauliina Feodoroff, and the progressive environmental network Snowchange Cooperative on arctic land and water restoration projects, presented for example in Sámi Pavilion in Venice Biennale 2022.
Parry has worked as curator and creative producer in several multi-disciplinary arts festivals and companies in both her home countries, Finland and Great Britain, as well as in the USA. Organisations she has worked at include for example Helsinki Festival, LIFT Festival (London), American Realness (New York), and Cirko – Center for New Circus. Her work has been focusing on arts interaction with public space, queer, documentary and political work, as well as space design.
She has a master's degree in theatre studies from the University of Helsinki, and international studies from theatre directing, film, literature and feminist leadership.
Anni Sundbacka
Anni Sundbacka is a multidisciplinary art specialist, consultant and lecturer. Her background is especially in the independent art sector, with expertise in performance art, contemporary visual art, live art and puppetry. She is the co-founder of New Performance Turku Biennale and managing director of the New Performance Turku Association. Currently, she is working as a residency director (deputy) at Kone Foundation's Saari Residence.
Her talk in the seminar approaches events and organisations as platforms for building communities, collaboration and fair(er) working conditions in the art field. In this approach, sustainability includes, in addition to ecological, also economical, social, and psychological viewpoints as an intrinsic part of sustainability as a system of care. In the core of this discussion is also the current volatile political landscape, precarious conditions, and the possibilities of the future. How to do more with less? Could the demand for "more" stand for depth and quality, not just growth and quantity?
