Report from Barents festival Kadonneen varjoteatterin

Barents festival 2009: Finnish UNIMA and Finnish puppet theatre celebrates anniversary

It has been a good year for Finnish puppet theatre. Unima Finland has among other things been organizing two big festivals in the anniversary year, and an anthology of the history of Finnish puppet theatre has been published. The seventh Barents region puppet theatre festival was organized in Oulu and Rovaniemi 21.-26. 2010.

In addition to many Finnish shows, we also got to experience a program of great variation with shows from Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, Russia, Netherlands, USA and Norway. The Akseli Klonk-theatre in Oulu, where Janne Kuustie, leader of UNIMA Finland, is the director, was technical organizer of the festival. The theatre was themselves represented with many shows at the festival. I rarely have experienced a festival that showed so much consideration to the audience. In addition to skilled technical organizers, this was also due to very appropriate spaces in Valve culture centre. Valve culture centre is placed in the old police station in Oulu. To this old building, which now includes for example three big dance studios, they have made an extra room in the building which give space to one big and one small theatre stage. The old back yard has been given a

Steven Luca Groenen performed on the streets of Rovaniemi. Artist Francois Blanc got lot of friens from all ages.

roof, and it contains a cafeteria. The old prison cells in the basement have become a exhibition-space for “captivating” art, this time it included an exhibition for children. Spectators were able to walk from one show to the other and experience a tight program with much variation. One of the goals of the festival is to let artists from different countries and cultures get to know each other. It is therefore created possibilities for the groups who perform at the festival to be present during the whole festival. In this way, new contacts for future cooperation are made. An exciting aspect of the festival was also that several of the shows were made by former students from the puppet theatre school in Turku. This school was started in 1994, and it is clear that it is starting to affect the Finnish theatre world. This was also one of the reasons that one of the festival days happened in Rovaniemi, a three and a half hours train trip north of Oulu. At the same time as the festival in Oulu, there was a Solo puppet theatre festival in Rovaniemi, and most of the performers at this festival were former students from Turku. During the train trip we were presented for the world´s smallest puppet theatre, shows in pocket-format. Steven Luca Groenen from Nederland presented 6 different shows with the spectator´s palms as a stage. The trip back was characterized by sing-along songs and improvised solo-shows, a continous happening characterized by Russian, Finnish, Swedish and American songs and tunes. Being a guest in Finland is a great experience. Quality is something you connect with Finland. Also hospitality and generosity. The festival opened with a ceremonial banquet, with a lot to eat and drink. Oulu City was host, and the leader of the culture committee, Outi Ervasti, did the official opening. The ending of the festival was equal in greatness. The music was provided by Vox Flatus, a metallika/punk and performance-band with the theatre director as mood-setting vocalist together with 6 other musicians, jangle-sound making objects – milk bottles with small rocks inside, attached amplifiers – metal plates and saw also. The group has shocked and entertained their audience since 1990. And then it was food and sauna afterwards. We got to take part in everything more than one could expect, and probably I am not the only one that has been a bit ”high” after the festival.

Svein Gundersen Norway photos: Kati-Aurora Kuuskoski Text is translated from Norwegian language.

Service on the train. Maiju Tawast and Tobias Effe.

David Burman and Hans Hartwik-Medsen took part to the Unima nordic meeting in Oulu.