ANTI Festival nominated for the Theatre of the Year 2019 Award in Finland
Media release 14.2.2019
ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival has been nominated for the Finnish Theatre of the Year 2019 award. There are two nominees: in addition to ANTI Festival, Baltic Circle Festival from Helsinki is nominated for the award. The winner is selected by the Finnish member of parliament Outi Alanko-Kahiluoto.
The finalists were chosen by a jury, whose members were dramaturgist Marie Kajava, director-screenwriter Hilkka Liisa Iivanainen and critic and researcher Raija Ojala, who is also the former manager of the last year’s winner Zodiak. – Center for New Dance. The prize is awarded by The Association of Finnish Theatres.
With the nominations, the jury wants to highlight two forerunners of Finnish contemporary theatre and performance, who broaden the concept of theatre with their operational model and existence. They are fascinatingly curated, radical and internationally acclaimed art festivals, whose programme and production senses and quickly reacts to the society.
ANTI Festival’s artistic directors are excited about the nomination
This nomination is an incredibly exciting moment for ANTI Festival, rejoice the artistic directors Johanna Tuukkanen and Gregg Whelan. According to Tuukkanen, ANTI expands the notion of theatre by actively asking what a performance is, who is or can be an artist and how audience can be understood. By escaping the traditional spaces and sometimes also forms of theatre, ANTI creates social, cultural and physical space for contemporary artists to create performative encounters that directly engage diverse audiences in their everyday environments. This ongoing act of producing art works in public spaces breaks down stereotypical devisions of art audiences and to whom art is for, and crashes down the myth of artists working in their ivory towers. Whelan emphasizes the festival’s meaning to the city of Kuopio and the availability of art: “For 17 years we’ve been working with performance-makers across Finland, and the world, to offer to Kuopio something we feel is hugely important – the opportunity for people from all walks of life, from every community and neighborhood of Kuopio, to engage with culture and the arts at their best; questioning, complex, challenging, entertaining, surprising and life-changing, often all at the same time. We’re a festival without walls and our events are free to see, there are no tickets, no best seats and no restrictions and who might suddenly turn a corner in their city and encounter a world-renowned artist at work.” Tuukkanen and Whelan would like to thank the artists who have performed at the festival and emphasize the cultural meaning of performance art: “There lies a huge significance and great potential for performance and performance makers whom ANTI celebrates, supports and continues to explore and explode the urban spaces with in the future. To be nominated the Theatre of the Year 2019 is an exciting recognition not only for ANTI, but the hundreds of amazing artists we have worked with. Our audiences constantly surprise us, and we hope we can continue to surprise them. We’re absolutely thrilled to be nominated as a potential Theatre of the Year.”
Jury’s reasoning
ANTI Festival’s content and artistic direction display a broad knowledge of the arts and also ability to act in city space with an especially contemporary vision. The festival’s courage to act on the fringes of performance, social sciences, futurology and gaming is a product of exceptionally professional artistic and productional directing. ANTI creates opportunities for utopias and impossibilities without elitism. The meanings of gaming, it’s strategies and methods, have this far received little attention. In 2018 ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival proved it’s topicality by working with the themes of games and playing.
Theater of the Year award
Theater of the Year award is a prize awarded by The Association of Finnish Theatres yearly to an outstanding Finnish theater, which is especially commendable in its operation by producing experiences to its audiences, being a pleasing work environment, improving its region’s culture life and carrying out other specifically meaningful tasks in its region. The prize has been awarded since 1996. This is the first time a festival has been nominated.
More information about the Association of Finnish Theatre: http://www.suomenteatterit.fi/eng/
Awarding event Thalia-juhla: https://www.facebook.com/events/363004350920166/