Job posting: K&C is looking for an executive director

Kekäläinen & Company (K&C) is an artistically unique dance and performance art operator in Finland. This dance theatre, founded in 1996, has done pioneering work in the field of independent performing arts and has earned a reputation for its uncompromising artistic quality, both in Finland and internationally. Plenty of time has always been given to artistic processes, and extensive thematic thinking has been a central and recognizable element in the work. The works of the artistic director, Sanna Kekäläinen, have expanded the concept of a dance work, combining philosophy, gender issues, writing and conceptual thinking from a feminist perspective with a strongly physical and unique movement language. K&C’s operations are financed by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike) and the City of Helsinki.

In the coming years, a multi-year art project will be implemented, a new kind of residency activity and partnerships will be carried out, and long-term international cooperation projects will be prepared.

K&C has its own studio space and an office/residence space at the Helsinki Cable Factory. The group does not have permanent staff; the artistic working groups are hired per project.

This job position of the executive director is new. The executive director nurtures and seeks out various partnerships, acts as the supervisor of working groups, and develops activities together with the artistic director. The executive director is responsible for K&C’s production, information, marketing, and social relations.

The job is part-time (approx. 80%, negotiable). The salary is proportional to the full-time monthly salary of €4.000. In the long term, the executive director has the opportunity to develop and shape both K&C’s operations and their own job description. The employment starts at the beginning of April 2024 or according to agreement.

The applicant is required to have initiative, cooperation and self-management skills, and fluent oral and written English. Knowledge of the Finnish language is not mandatory. The job cannot be done fully remotely. Knowledge of the art field is desirable.

Applications for the position of executive director are accepted until 30.1.2024. Send a free-form application and CV by e-mail to: outi@artsmanagement.fi.

Inquiries about the content of the job:

Artistic director Sanna Kekäläinen
by phone 15.-19.1.2024 at 11:00-13:00
tel. 041 510 1151

The interviews will take place on 5.-9.2.2024.

More information: Outi Järvinen, p. 041 545 6255, outi@artsmanagement.fi

Auringonvihreä – homage to poet Gunnar Björling at the Helsinki Observatory 25.-27.1.2024

Gunnar Björling. Kuva: SLS.

Kekäläinen & Company’s new creation Auringonvihreä, Sun Green, is a poetic movement homage to Gunnar Björling (1887-1960). Björling was a groundbreaking Finnish-Swedish author. In the recent years, his works have received the acknowledgment that they deserve, amongst the leading figures of European modernist literature.

Helsinki Observatory is situated near Björling’s home. For many years he lived in the Kaivopuisto area of Helsinki, in a small apartment which was originally a sauna. He took his daily walks to the city through the park of the Observatory.

Auringonvihreä is directed and choreographed by Sanna Kekäläinen. Performers are Annette Arlander, Janne Saarakkala and Eero Vesterinen.

Thursday 25.1.2024 at 17:30 – Night of Sciences
Friday 26.1. at 18:30
Saturday 27.1. at  14:30

Performance languages: Finnish and Swedish.
Tickets 18 €.
Helsinki Observatory, Kopernikuksentie 1, Tähtitorninvuori.
https://www.helsinki.fi/en/helsinki-university-museum-flame/observatory

***

Performer Janne Saarakkala’s work in this performance is supported by Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation.

Photo: SLS

Shared Space – a philosophical dance piece for school-aged children 18.-21.10.2023

 

Shared Space is a philosophical dance piece for school-aged children and their parents, which looks for answers for the faithful question of our time.

Each era has its own fateful question. In our time this question arises from the climate crisis, mass extinction and the violence that characterizes our age.

Shared Space suggests sharing and hospitality as kind of an answer to this question. Shared materials, their organocenic quality and taking care of them. The space and experience are shared just as the world is shared between all.

The performance uses the object world of nabbteeri. Artist duo Janne Nabb and Maria Teeri make observations of multispecies cultures and aim to build communities in their art. Shared Space contains various materials and textures of nabbteeri together with dance art of Sanna Kekäläinen.

Shared Space is a performance for school-aged children, adapted from Kekäläinen & Company’s work Shared Spaces And Things We Need.
The work premiered in September 2023 and was well received by the audience and critics. Maria Säkö from Helsingin Sanomat described the work:
“The performance asks: what is hospitality and sharing? The accuracy and sensitivity of the gestures by the performers are in a league of their own, and they are contagious to the audience members as well. Just as if the dance work could return to the spectators’ bodies information about the necessity of nurturing relationships in a harsh, violent world living in the midst of species loss and climate catastrophe.”


Script, direction and coreography, space: Sanna Kekäläinen
Performers and co-operation: Sanna Kekäläinen, Leila Kourkia, Lara Müller
Objects (excepts bags and tarpaulins): nabbteeri & Riikka Keränen
Sound design: Jaakko Kulomaa
Light design: Lauri Sirén

PERFORMANCES
18.10.2023 at 14
19.10.2023 at 18
20.10.2023 at 18
21.10.2023 at 14
Annantalo, Annankatu 30, Helsinki

Duration: approx 1 hr
Age recommendation: 7+
No spoken language is used.

Tickets 15 €