The performing arts festival Switchover is coming to Tartu for the fourth time!
The festival will bring a fresh spring breeze along with Kanuti Gildi SAAL's new productions from this season and a guest from Switzerland.
The Switchover festival takes place from May 14th to 18th. During five days, there will be five different productions. The performances will explore concepts such as surveillance society, social media, activism, queering, and feminism. In addition, there will also be pieces that are dealing with the fundamental topics of performative arts – such as the body, sound and movement.
The festival kicks off with Keithy Kuuspu and Liisa Saaremäel’s production What Are Little Girls Made Of, where the artists attempt to take a step back in their performative arts journey and remain raw. The question of whether it is possible to 'make eggs out of an omelet' will be clarified on stage.
The 'Little Girls' will be passing the baton to Rat’s Rumba – a performance nominated this year for the Estonian Theatre Award in the Performance Art Category. The authors Liisbeth Horn, Kärt Koppel, and Anumai Raska are taking the audience on a fun journey where the tools of a surveillance society, such as social media and cameras, are under scrutiny – who is the spectator, and who is being observed?
With a biblical Creation of the World and sound frequencies, the short performance evening SAAL3 vol. 3 brings the audience back to the MOMENT. Three artists with different backgrounds and practices use sound to make sense of the space they are performing in. This time, it is the beloved cultural and party hub in Tartu – Genialistide klubi.
On Friday people will gather to discuss communities and activism at the talk panel SWITCHING OVER: artistic communities, with a focus on communities where the common element is the diverse artistic practices and the effort to make the world a better place through art.
On Saturday and Sunday, there will be a chance to see a piece, which has sparked passions and rumours – FIRESTARTERS by Sveta Grigorjeva. FIRESTARTERS are individuals who, on one hand, are fierce activists with a mission to change the world for the better, while at the same time, they show the reality of a world filled with people suffering from burnout. 'FIRESTARTERS' is also accessible to the deaf community, as there is an Estonian sign language translation running on the screen.
This year’s festival guest performer is Teresa Vittucci from Zurich, Switzerland, who will be performing HATE ME TENDER - the first part of her trilogy in praise of vulnerability, where she playfully decodes the archetype of Virgin Mary. What could be the role model Mary in today's world, when Vittucci offers us a chance to see her from the queer-feminist perspective?
As it has already become a tradition, the central hub of the festival will be Tartu Uus Teater. We are excited to introduce a new host location for the festival, the Estonian National Museum, and we are also happy to be back at Genialistide klubi – the place where it all started.