The summer season of Tampere Region Festivals kicks off with the contemporary dance festival Tampere Dance Current, taht explores the newest works of modern dance both on stage and on screen. Summer arrives with festivities, as Tampere Guitar Festival celebrates its 20-year history with over 100 artists, and Annikki Poetry Festival presents a selection of domestic and international poetry from the courtyard of a wooden town quarter.
From below you can read the compilation of the events of the early June.
Tampere Dance Current 21.–26.5.
Dance Theatre MD organises the 27th Tampere Dance Current, the festival of modern dance, which introduces artists from the pinnacle of modern dance and takes a look at its current trends.
The programme of the May event cultivates hope and manifests, that dance as an art form has power, determination and ability to inspire change in people. The progamme includes six stage works, nine dance films and a workshop for influencing cultural policy. In addition, the festival offers a walking lecture; Sandrina Lindgren’s Hand in Hand takes a look at the cultural meanings of holding hands.
Ukrainian Anastasia Krasnoshchoka’s work Flowers Also Cry is based on the experiences of brave women under Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine. It is not just a depiction of hardship, but an ode to strength and determination.
The festival programme also plays around with representation and explores, through dance and movement, human bodies and identities in the age of real and digital worlds colliding. The corporality of wandering in relation to the female body is also explored, as well as the movement between the everyday, the absurd and the supernatural.
For more information: https://tanssivirtaa.net/
Tampere Guitar Festival 4.–9.6.
The international Tampere Guitar Festival turns 20 years old this summer. The theme programme of Yhdessä – Together gathers audiences in the concert halls and clubs Tampere, as well as Nokia and Pirkkala. The celebration concert of the anniversary year is presented at Tampere Hall.
Included in the festival, the versatile guitarist Timo Kämäräinen interprets the works of Pat Metheny together with Tampere Big Band, conducted by Ville Vannemaa. Kämäräinen is also one of the soloists of the TGF20 Celebration concert. In the clubs, there are performances by Tampere-based Atmos Duo and the fingerstyle guitarists Mario Parizek and Petteri Sariola.
As is tradition, the festival includes lots of classical guitar music. The headliner in this genre is Argentinian Pablo Márquez, who has become famous especially as an interpreter of modern music.
The younger generation is represented by Uppsala Guitar Quartet. It is comprised of four award-winning European guitarists, who also perform in their solo concerts during the festival. Other future stars can be heard in the in the finals and semifinals of the Classical Guitar Competition of Finland, as well as the student concert of Tampere University of Applied Sciences.
For more information: https://www.tgf.fi/
Annikki Poetry Festival 8.6.
Annikki Poetry Festival is among the most original events in Tampere. Organised now for the 17th time, the festival programme is comprised of international guests, Finnish poets and prose writers, music, open mic, children’s programme and visual arts. This year’s programme is especially focused on performance poetry.
The performers include, among others, Aulikki Oksanen and Kielo Kärkkäinen. Before Oksanen’s own performance, Kärkkäinen performs classic songs written by her. As a tribute to the life’s work of Kaj Chydenius, only his compositions are selected for the performance.
Among international guests is Abdulla Pashew, the most significant Kurdish-speaking contemporary poet, who performs for a Finnish audience for the first time at the idyllic Annikki wood quarter. Another international guest is Irish Stephen James Smith, who has been dubbed Dublin’s unofficial poet laureate.
For more information: https://www.annikinrunofestivaali.net/
Photo: Flowers also Cry by Anastasia Krasnoshchoka. Photographer: Eva T. Anker
