BALTIC TAKE OVER 2025
10-12 April in Turku
Baltic Take Over is a performing arts festival co-curated by the New Theatre Institute of Latvia, Kanuti Gildi SAAL (Estonia), and Lithuanian Dance Information Centre, this time in collaboration with Tehdas Teatteri and the New Performance Turku Biennale. Presenting performances by artists mainly working in Baltic countries, the festival serves as the destination of a road trip through Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. In dialogue with local partners, the festival seeks moments of connection with local scenes, artists, and audiences.
This year’s program includes six performances, tied together with talks, discussions, and gatherings. The program of Baltic Take Over proposes a variety of explorations of one’s own being in relation to something else—lost memories, houseplants, aggression, the stories of those we don’t know, rubber gloves filled with water, and bodies made of plastic. Hanna Kritten Tangsoo and Sigrid Savi open the festival with existentialist humor, believing in a moment where everything will be just fine. COWBODY/Oh wow, it's you! presents a hotpot of dance, sculpture, music, and fitness trampolines, with a strong undertaste of Nordic awkwardness.
The performance Me / Her by Anita Kremm presents a score of poses that explores the relationship between two bodies — "me" and "the other." The young artist opens up possibilities for finding new routes to experiencing empathy.
Further scores of poses are explored in Agnietė Lisičkinaitė’s work Hands Up, which is situated somewhere between a performance and a political intervention. Moving through the city space, the artist invites the audience to participate in viewing dance as a tool for social activism, a powerful way to trigger thoughts and questions.
The love for choral singing that all three Baltic countries share is represented by the feminist opera Monstera Deliciosa. This performance by Barbara Lehtna brings together four women from different generations to tell their own stories while singing the stories of other women — from the worries of a public toilet attendant to the concerns of a young ecofeminist.
Intimate stories also intertwine in A Dance for Washing Machine and a Mother. This performance by Greta Grinevičiūtė proposes a row of questions about memory and mothers, dancing together, and who will remember the dances.
With the project Queer Tango Club, Katrīna Dūka forms a temporary collective of people who come together to learn and dance the Argentine tango. The temporary collective is an opportunity for envisioning queer futurities and social structures that transcend current norms and limitations related to gender, sexuality, and identity. The audience is invited to a showing on the last day of the festival.
Baltic Take Over thinks of taking over as a way of shifting habitual structures that cultural work often follows. Taking over is gently negotiated and possible only thanks to a warm invitation. Baltic Take Over is presented in collaboration with Tehdas Teatteri, New Performance Turku Biennale, Ehkä-production, Barker-Teatteri, Viinatehdas, Performing Arts Centre Finland (ESKUS), and Aurinkobaletti. The 2025 edition is supported by the Baltic Culture Fund, Nordic-Baltic Mobility Grant for Culture, the Embassy of Estonia in Helsinki, and the Estonian Ministry of Culture.
Program:
10.04
19:00 / Barker-teatteri
Hanna Kritten Tangsoo, Sigrid Savi COWBODY/Oh wow, it's you! (followed by opening drinks)
11.04
17:30 / Tehdas Teatteri
Jokistudio Anita Kremm Me / Her (followed by an artist talk)
19:30 / Contemporary Arts Space Kutomo
Greta Grinevičiūtė A Dance for Washing Machine and a Mother
12.04
12:00-14:00 / Tehdas Teatteri
Thinking laboratory with Heidi Backström
15:00 / Barker-teatteri
Barbara Lehtna Monstera Deliciosa (followed by an artist talk)
17:30 / City space and Aurinkobaletti
Agnietė Lisičkinaitė Hands Up
18:30 / Tehdas Teatteri Jokistudio
Anita Kremm Me / Her
19:30 / Viinatehdas
Katrīna Dūka Queer Tango Club
20:30-... / Tehdas Teatteri
Afterparty!