27.05.2024

The Theatre Museum's next artist-in-residence in September will be sound and performance artist Juha Valkeapää. He will start his two-week residency for his project Animal beings! on August 28th and will end the period with performances in September.

At the Theatre Museum Valkeapää is working on the second version of his work. Animal beings! was first seen at the Palazzo Lucarini Contemporary, in Trevi in March 2023. Animal beings! is a performance that will resemble a guided tour of a museum. It looks into how we exist in this world and explores different ways of existing from the perspective of non-human animal species. Valkeapää’s instruments include nonverbal and verbal sounds with and without amplification, as well as the use of body and movement, poems, performance scripts, and soundscapes.

During his residency, Valkeapää will work at the museum and prepare his performance. You may meet him on a visit to the museum and watch him work for a while. The residency will end with a series of performances that gently engage the audience, i.e. the performance will sometimes "flock" with the audience. It is also possible to simply follow the swarming without participating. The performance is in Finnish and/or English and is suitable for all ages. More precise performance dates will be announced in the autumn.

Ollaan eläimiksi! / Animal beings
Script and performance by Juha Valkeapää
Dramaturgical assistance and English translation of poems by Heidi Soidinsalo

Juha Valkeapää is a sound and performance artist born in 1967. During his 30-year career, he has created performances, installations, radio works, and soundscapes of different shapes, sounds and looks all over the world. The key elements of Valkeapää's art are sound, presence, playfulness, improvisation, and live contact with the audience. From 2022–2026, his work is supported by a five-year artist grant from the Arts Promotion Centre Finland.
(www.juhavalkeapaa.net)

Photo by Mara Predicatori

The Theatre Museum's space residency programme started in 2022, with choreographer Favela Vera Ortiz in spring and musician Venla Ilona Blom in autumn. In January 2023, the museum hosted director and filmmaker Vilma Tihilä and dancer and choreographer Arttu Peltoniemi, and in August, Vilus.art, a combination of circus, dance and acrobatics – Vilhelmiina Sinervo, Ines Kakkonen and Mercedes Krapovickas. The January 2024 artists were Anni Kaila, Karoliina Loimaala and Anna Stenberg from the KÖTT collective. The next call for residencies will open in November-December 2024 for residencies in 2025.