Incoming Artistic Director to take Helsinki Festival to new interesting venues

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By Vesa Sirén
     
      The incoming Artistic Director of the Helsinki Festival Erik Söderblom wants Helsinki residents to see their environment with new eyes.
      ”The Helsinki Festival is to continue as the manifesto and messenger of the capital’s change. I want to take events to certain places in order to challenge the viewer to see them in new ways. Look at the clock tower of Helsinki’s Central Railway Station! When it has been covered, the city centre looks completely new”, he says with enthusiasm.
      ”I want to search for places in which the city’s energy condensates and where the right kind of feng shui can be found”, Söderblom notes, referring to the ancient Chinese system of aesthetics.
     
Söderholm will move to the Helsinki Festival from the Theatre Academy, where he is currently Vice-Rector and Professor of the Swedish-Language Acting Department.
      Söderblom has directed spoken and music theatre both in Finland and abroad. Among his recent assignments have been the premieres of Finnish operas, including TapioTuomela’s Mothers and Daughters, Mikko Heiniö’s The Hour of the Serpent, as well as Veli-Matti Puumala’s Anna Liisa, based on a classic Finnish play of the same name written by Minna Canth.
      One of his most sensational directing tasks was Connecting People, a "Nokia play" written by Jouko Turkka, the controversial Finnish director and writer, and premiered at Tallinn’s Von Krahli Teater in 2001.
     
Söderblom’s appointment was announced on March 24th, to be effective from May 1st of this year.
      Söderblom will take over from Risto Nieminen, who has led the festival since 1997, and who will be moving on to head the music section at the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, Portugal.
      ”The Helsinki Festival used to be primarily a festival of classical music, until Esa-Pekka Salonen, the Director in 1995 and 1996, broke the mould. Successor Risto Nieminen then reorganised the budget and built the next festival on the basis of Salonen’s ideas, with some conspicuous changes”, Söderblom says.
     
”I do not intend to tear apart anything. On the contrary, I will build more. Everything good is to remain”, notes Söderblom.
      He says that he was invited to take up the position of the Artistic Director of the Helsinki Festival.
      ”Rather soon I realised that this post is a logical continuation to my activities”, the experienced theatre and opera director observes.
     
Söderblom has promised to maintain certain symbols of the Helsinki Fesival, including the giant festival tent known as Huvilateltta, the traditional Night of the Arts, as well as the Evening with Living Poets event.
      But he also wants to bring the festival to venues where new and old, familiar and strange collide.
      ”The traditional concert format is also so established that we simply must create something new, provided that premises offering good acoustic solutions can be found”, Söderblom promises.
      The new director does not promise to reduce or increase any branch of creative activity.
      ”The branches of art are not competing with each other. A composition or graffiti - both tell that the maker was here. We create city events, but do not compartmentalise them”, Söderblom says.
     
Is Söderblom making preparations for turning the Helsinki Festival into a total work of art that would combine all branches of creative activities?
      ”The opera is quite a good representation of that - a mega-happening. Because they chose an artist to do the job, I want to look at everything through the artist’s glasses. The artist’s task is not to be seen but to see deeper”, Söderblom analyses.
     
Does the new director have enough experience to secure corporate financing?
      ”The budget of an arts university is triple the size of that of the Helsinki Festival, and I have always dealt with sponsors”, Söderblom reassures those who have their doubts.
      ”After all, even the Theatre Academy has a sponsor, namely the Ministry of Education”, Söderblom concludes.
      He sees the similarities between creative art and creative marketing, saying that in both cases the use of imagination is bound to condense the ideas and make them visible.
      At least Kirsi Piha, the Chairman of the Board of the Helsinki Week Foundation, was impressed by the chosen director.
      ”Erik explained his vision for the Helsinki Festival so cogently that it will certainly become clear to sponsors as well”, Piha said.
     
The Helsinki Festival has a social function, not only an artistic-aesthetic one, Söderblom declares.
      ”Getting together is important, and a recession is no reason to pull back from that. Material values are no cohesive force”, the director argues.
      In his view, an individual feels good when being able to ”see himself or herself correctly”, for which one needs a sense of togetherness and culture.
      ”Health centres provide after-treatment, but it is culture that helps urban people to keep their balance”, Söderblom believes.
     
Moreover, one should be able to picture the world.
      ”We should understand for example China and India comprehensively - not just through the filter of exoticism. Contemporary art could help in this respect. And we should see our own position, too: the border between Eastern and Western Europe goes along the Pitkäsilta Bridge”, Söderblom charges, referring to a traditional Helsinki landmark and historical and social boundary.
     
Does Söderblom intend to establish his own court for the Helsinki Festival?
      ”I will invite new friends to visit and to cooperate with the old ones”, he plans.
      And will Söderblom himself direct any productions for the Festival?
      ”For the 2009 Festival I will direct a visualized performance to be carried out by the Taite group, which was agreed upon before I knew of my new post. I will naturally continue my artistic activities, but during the Helsinki Festival itself I will be too busy.”
     
Söderblom is careful not to say too much as Nieminen has already planned the programme for this year's two-week event in August, and so Söderblom will be turning his eyes to 2010.
      ”Art is what people get when money is distilled into some non-material values”, he says.
      But who gets it? During the Helsinki Festival, tickets often cost more than those for other similar events.
      ”The tickets are expensive, yes, but they are a sum of many things”, Söderblom admits.
      So, is the Helsinki Festival organised just for the elite?
      ”Elitism per se does not exclude anyone. Art is based on understanding and togetherness between those who understand. And that is how the party is set up”, Söderblom concludes.
     

The Helsinki Festival, the largest arts festival in Finland, is an international arts festival held annually in late August and early September. The Helsinki Festival operates under the auspices of the Helsinki Week Foundation, established by the City of Helsinki. The festival's aim is to make art accessible for all.
      Helsinki Festival 2009 will run from August 14th to 30th. The full programme for this year will be announced on April 21st.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 25.3.2009


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Erik Söderblom to take over at Helsinki Festival (25.3.2009)
  Salonen´s Philharmonia Orchestra want to come to the Helsinki Festival (17.3.2009)

Links:
  Helsinki Festival
  Erik Söderblom

VESA SIRÉN / Helsingin Sanomat
vesa.siren@hs.fi