SAAL Nexus is an event series at Kanuti Gildi SAAL, where each event focuses on questions and topics that pop up in the cultural field. On 13 November, we are throwing a party symposium to have fun at work from both analytical and pleasurable perspectives. The evening unfolds as a party that contains elements from a symposium – presentations and workshops by Lucien Lambertz, Kärt Koppel, Mia-Stella Aaslaid, and Kaius Põder, but also an album release performance by Keliel, hanging out, meeting new people, and good music.

At the party symposium we’ll find out how the dynamics of discussions and meetings unfold when it all happens at a party rather than a conference hall. After-hours gatherings are crucial to the ways we work in culture, but despite the fact that most connections happen in these moments, it’s weirdly inappropriate to mark them down in the work calendar. Even as something with such importance, the recipe for a brilliant festival party remains enigmatic. What does hanging out add to a festival’s programme or a show we just experienced together? When should a meaningful gathering take place and how strictly should it be planned? What’s the secret to letting “magic” happen?

Hamburg-based cultural worker, dramaturg, and curator Lucien Lambertz gives a workshop titled “ALL TOMORROW’S PARTIES – PAY TO GET IN, PRAY TO GET OUT?”. Parties in art spaces should be more than a colleague DJing, a Bluetooth speaker and drinks from the restaurant bar. At least good parties should be. Thought of as curated social spaces, parties can create openings for encounters, collective experiences and alternative ways of being together. Thinking of parties as heterotopias – spaces in which other social realities can emerge within existing ones – this lecture explores their potential to challenge social conventions, create safer and braver spaces, temporarily hold space for communities, offer moments of release, reassurance, foster empowerment and leave lasting impressions. Moving between curatorial reflections, examples from artistic party formats and small interventions involving the audience, they ask what it takes to make a party work, what needs to be thought through, which risks are worth taking – and what happens when the experience escapes the intentions of its hosts.

The evening takes shape around the album release concert ”nights around counting steps” by Finland-based harpist and composer Keliel. The original soundtrack of the (eponymous) dance piece choreographed by Nele Tiidelepp will be released by World Canvas. The music, enthused with the relationship between a footstep and a note, will be versioned and performed live with harp.

Kärt Koppel, current artist-in-residence at Kanuti Gildi SAAL, takes a speculative approach to statistics by counting the hours spent working and playing. Kanuti Gildi SAAL’s unofficial party committee, Mia-Stella Aaslaid and Kaius Põder, make a presentation on our current approaches to organizing parties, offering a gen Z perspective into how parties in workplaces should be organized. They propose ideas around how to structure work and play in a way that it’s not only a selected few that can play while others remain alone at work. Later in the evening, Mia-Stella will take over the DJ booth.

Keliel works with lack as a force of possibility: not absence, but a composed incompleteness that only performance makes whole. His recent works include SONGBIRD with Tiia Kasurinen (Dance Base Yokohama, Inkonst, Kiasma, Solstice, 2025-26) and Afterglow, low lingering slips of light with Anna Maria Häkkinen (Performa Biennal, Kiasma, Kai Art Center, 2023-25).

Lucien Lambertz (they/them) has been part of the artistic team at Kampnagel – International Center for Finer Arts since 2010, where they currently work as Artistic Coordinator, co-curating the season programme and contributing to strategic organisational development. Their curatorial practice focuses on queer performance, participatory projects and interdisciplinary formats, with an emphasis on local and international collaboration. They are the founder and curator of LIMINALITIES – Performing Arts Festival on Trans* Visibility, and regularly work as a coach, mentor and guest lecturer.

Kärt Koppel is a self-proclaimed geek who explores the overlap between popular and high culture through text, social media and performance. She writes the monthly column About Dance Without Dance for Tantsu Kuukiri and is one-third of the non-musical girl group Unholy Trinity. Her recent projects include the Springback Academy dance criticism mentorship programme (2025), a performative installation Tactical Spooning (2025) in Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (EKKM), and the hyper-pop performance Rat’s Rumba (2024) in Kanuti Gildi SAAL. Kärt’s artistic ideas, concepts and experiments simmer in the sauce of office aesthetics.

Since 2024, Mia-Stella Aaslaid works at Kanuti Gildi SAAL as a social media project manager. She is a DJ and artist who experiments with the perceptual boundaries of being through sound. Mia has contributed to numerous event series and DJ collectives. In 2021, together with Andrus Aaslaid, she founded the DIY gallery and concert venue Cabaret Volta, which mainly focuses on experimental electronic sounds.

Kaius Põder is the house manager at Kanuti Gildi SAAL. Since 2024, he has been part of the curatorial team of SAAL Biennaal. He is also involved in horse riding and grief support counselling.

Previous SAAL Nexus events:
– On research
– On leadership:
– On dealing with fear:
– Career day for young people:
– On independent publishing: