Arts Fraction Foundation & JIENKYO: Kuuki – Hurraa! festival

Dynamically, lightly, airy, elusively – Kuuki is a quest for energy. Can the wind be touched? How does the air smell? How does the breath sound?

空気 (Kuuki) is the Japanese word for air. It consists of kanji signs defining sky, atmosphere and energy all at the same time. For artists working on this production Kuuki primarily stands for movement.

Each of us – children and adults – experiences it on a daily basis, yet air constantly enraptures us with it’s elusiveness, under consciousness, enchants with the promise of going up, attracts the possibility of flight, spinning.

Dancers and instrumentalists take viewers for a journey to search for materiality together, in what is so fleeting. They invite the air to be touched, felt, listened... In this delicate and safe space, artists, children and adults look for mutual experiences and inspire each other. Movement, sound and image are filled with air.

Kuuki is a Japanese-Polish production, for which JIENKYO (Japanese Theater Union for Children and Youth) invited the creative duet Barbara Małecka / Alicja Morawska-Rubczak, which for almost ten years have been dealing with the development of the theater for the youngest in Poland and the promotion of home theater for children abroad, and as a stage designer and director together they create performances dedicated to children under the age of three. They were joined by an outstanding Japanese accordionist Kanako Kato.

Duration: approx. 40 min
Age recommendation: 0-1,5 years
Language: no speech

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Hurraa! Festival 12–20 March 2022

Virtuosity in the doorway, swans on a silver lake and men in wool socks!

The municipal cultural services of the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, in cooperation with ASSITEJ Finland, organise the Hurraa! festival of performing arts for children and young people on 12–20 March 2022. The festival offers high-quality performances for children, young people and families in the cultural centres of the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. The programme includes physical theatre, circus, dance and puppet theatre. Traditionally known as a showcase for fresh Finnish performance art, the 2022 Hurraa! festival will also feature international performances produced by ASSITEJ Finland.

The Finnish highlights of the 2022 Hurraa! festival include: Ovisilmä by Teatteri QO, Prinsessa Pikkiriikki by Nukketeatteri Kuuma Ankanpoikanen & Tehdasteatteri, Suru puserossa by Teatteri Tuomikko, Piste, piste, piste by Company Portmanteau, Frankenstein by Red Nose Company and Sarana by Ilmatila. The international programme consists of four exciting performances originally intended for the 2020 Bravo! festival, which was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the 2022 Hurraa! festival, we will finally see M.I.S. – Natten Lang by Don Gnu from Denmark, Tvärslöjd by Kompani Giraff from Sweden, LILLA SVANSJÖN by Claire Parsons Co. from Sweden and Kuuki by Art Fraction Foundation & JIENKYO from Poland and Japan.

More information about the festival’s performances, ticket sales and related events will be available at https://hurraa.org from mid-December.