Dear residents of Hanko, summer guests, and festival audience,
Welcome to Hangö Teaterträff! This year marks the 34th Hangö Teaterträff. As the festival’s artistic directors, we would like to wish you all a very warm welcome. This year, we have put together a program consisting of a vibrant medley of performances and events.
The schedule includes show wrestling, a monologue performance, an interactive computer game, film, documentary theatre, a mysterious box, puppet theatre, a performative cooking class, dances with the underworld, a tribute to Mannerheim’s forgotten daughters, theatre at home in the living room, gymnastics on the beach, karaoke, music bingo, dance floors, lectures, live critique, and panel discussions.
As the artistic directors, we have committed to weaving the festival program together each year with a thematic idea in mind. This does not mean that all performances deal with the same issues or fall under the same theme. Instead, it is about wanting to give you, our audience, a kind of reading guide—something you can choose to carry with you during the festival and reflect your own experiences against. This year’s theme is conflict. We have chosen to make the following claim: Theatre today has become afraid of creating real conflict.
Instead, theatre today is made to sell. The priority today seems to be reaching as broad an audience as possible and selling as many tickets as possible. Theatre today increasingly resembles more of a product and less a cultural phenomenon. The value of art no longer lies in the unique experience, the intimate encounter between individual and society, but in something more aesthetic, digestible, and optimized for mass consumption. This leads to theatre losing both the courage and the ability to cause trouble, to challenge, and to create real conflict. Conflict is certainly visible on our stages. But it’s one thing to talk about conflict, and another thing entirely to actually create conflict. Conflict is not an aesthetic; it is not a brand that can be neatly packaged and sold.
When we encounter real conflict, it chafes; it feels uncomfortable, challenging, and frightening. But it is only when we dare to face what is truly challenging that we open the door to real change. And right now, we live in times when the world is in desperate need of change. And so far, we have not achieved any significant change at all. Often, we go no further than talking about the conflict without ever taking any risks. We have reached the point where we should dare, not just to rock the boat, but actually to tip it over completely. But perhaps we are simply too afraid?
That’s why we want to open this year’s festival with the following invitation: Dare to look for the conflicts. For the friction, the chafing, the points where things clash. Maybe you don’t like our program—let us know. Maybe you love a performance that your friend doesn’t understand at all—dare to talk about it. Maybe you think this entire festival should be changed—join the association, and make an impact! It might sound demanding. But we believe it is necessary.
And to keep it from becoming too heavy and serious, we have prepared a little game to make it all the more fun. We have created a “conflict bingo” which can be found at the ticket booth at Hangö Farm Deli. On the bingo card, you will find various small challenges. When you have done something listed on the card, you can cross off that square. When you get five squares in a row, write your name on the card and place it in the bingo box at Hangö Farm Deli. At the Saturday club, we will draw a winner. The prize is a spa package for two at Regatta Spa.
Until then, we wish you all a wonderful festival weekend with many inspiring artistic experiences and conflicts.
Cheers!