Kekäläinen & Company’s 30th anniversary year culminates in a new work premiering in December.
Hysteria Mundi – improvisations on Global Politics
What happens when one of the landmarks of Finnish contemporary dance meets the world of today?
Sanna Kekäläinen’s new work Hysteria Mundi – Improvisations on Global Politics premieres at the Alexander Theatre in Helsinki on 1 December. The work continues Kekäläinen’s for over four decades ongoing artistic work on corporeality, gender diversity and social change while focusing firmly at the present moment.
Hysteria Mundi is a multidisciplinary work in which classical music, electronic music, physical performance art, dance, Finnish popular music and spoken-word poetry meet.
And behind it all is global politics.
A landmark work hits the present
Hysteria Mundi enters into a dialogue with Sanna Kekäläinen’s 1991 work Studien über Hysterie. The brand new premiering work Hysteria Mundi has the historical material in it creating an unforeseen and mesmerizing new experience in which the past is embedded within the new work.
Studien über Hysterie sparked intense debate when it was first performed. The hysterical and naked body, a feminist perspective and psychoanalytic approach exploded the established conventions in Finnish performing arts. Today, the work is considered a landmark work in the history of Finnish contemporary dance and performance arts. The historical material inserted in the new work is absolutely urgent. Why? Perhaps because the world has changed.
Performances in December at the Alexander Theatre and Stoa
HYSTERIA MUNDI – IMPROVISATIONS ON GLOBAL POLITICS
Alexander Theatre, Helsinki
Tuesday 1 December 2026 at 6.30 PM
Wednesday 2 December 2026 at 6.30 PM
Buy tickets here.
Stoa Cultural Centre, Helsinki
Tuesday 15 December 2026 at 6PM
Wednesday 16 December 2026 at 6PM
Friday 18 December 2026at 6PM
Saturday 19 December 2026 at 2PM
Buy tickets here
Script, choreography and direction: Sanna Kekäläinen
Text: Kari Hukkila
Performers: Lea Pekkala, Janne Marja-aho, Eero Vesterinen and Sanna Kekäläinen
Music: J.S. Bach, Aulis Sallinen, Surma
Lighting design: Tuittu Teivainen
We hope to see you there. Welcome to Hysteria Mundi!
Read more about the work: Hysteria Mundi