"Creating a performance is a collaborative process. Its key ingredients are dreams and passion. Dreams are born in a place we can't reach yet. Pursuing that place makes our hearts beat faster..."

It’s Showtime is an exhibition of performing arts and the making of a performance. It’s Showtime is a journey where miracles happen!

It’s Showtime brings together the performing arts – theatre, dance, opera, circus and performance art – under one umbrella. The exhibition opens up the performance process from the idea through the preparation and rehearsal phase to the moment of performance and beyond. The exhibition is designed to highlight the interaction of art forms, the diversity and inclusiveness of the performing arts field, and the experiences of museum visitors.

At the Theatre Museum, visitors enter the multidimensional world of performance production. The historical elements side by side with the newest new show what is ancient and common to all performing arts. The genres are not distinguished as separate entities but blend into each other thematically and spatially.

Alongside the performance process, the exhibition provides space for new ideas and current themes. Contemporary performances deal with the surrounding society and time in a versatile, courageous and open-minded way. What kind of claims about the world and humanity do contemporary performances make? How are, for example, species extinction, the climate crisis or human rights reflected in performing arts?

It’s Showtime presents the characteristics of the arts and the artists who make them. The exhibition also encourages the visitor to experience, to experiment, to identify, search and discover. Visitors can enter the flow of performance making, pick up performance ingredients along the way, put together their own performance to be performed on the experimental stage at the end of the exhibition path.

"On stage, anything can happen! In performing arts, even the most utopian dreams may come true. The powerless can step into the limelight and the prevailing social norms may cease to exist."

Quotes by Taija Helminen, script for the exhibition

Working group
Curation: Taija Helminen, Minna Santakari
Exhibition texts: Taija Helminen
Visual design: Minna Santakari
Graphic design: Tuija Kuusela
Experimental stage, light design: Tarja Ervasti
Experimental stage, sound design: Tuomas Fränti
In the planning and writing group: Sanna Brander, Meri Eerola, Ilona Kemppainen, Milla Kortemaa, Johanna Laakkonen, Pälvi Laine, Eeva Mustonen, Heini Räsänen, Heikki Suomi.