The minimum age for audience members for one of the productions
premiering at the festival couldn't be much lower: crawling and walking age
children. Working group Anttonen, Nuotio, Davies
offers them Rapurytmikarnevaali, an
action-packed crab-crawl rhythm and salsa carnival with songs that will make
everybody want to swing.
{mosimage}Children over five can
enjoy Sammakkoprinsessa (The Frog
Princess), a mix of fairytale, opera and puppet theatre, based on classic
folktales. While one of the many acts for 7 to 12-year-olds is Klokbornin Jättiläisjamit (Klokborn’s
Giant Jam), a show that combines shadow theatre with a wide variety of music
styles and brings to life the giants Gargantua and Pantagruel, created by 15th
century French writer Rabelais.
The oldest non-adults
are well catered for with Idiothello,
a joint production by the Åbo Svenska Teater and the Von Krahl theatre in
Tallinn. Directed and choreographed by Muscovite Sasha Pepelyaev, the show draws upon two classical masterpieces,
Dostoevsky’s The Idiot and
Shakespeare’s Othello. The language
used is Swedish, but the piece is performed in a physical way with little
speech.
The Hurraa! Festival
offers children many fun and exciting experiences, but also takes up some
serious topics like bullying, the divorce of parents, a mother’s depression and
children’s rights and fears. Surkeus
& Kurjuus (Gloom & Doom), for example, is a play for children aged
8-12 and broaches the fear after change and separation, plus how to conquer it.
Pikku Piru (Little Devil) is aimed at
the same age group and follows the story of a little boy who is bullied at
school, but whose parents are too busy to help him.
The festival culminates
with the Näyteikkuna (Display window)
at the East-Helsinki Cultural Centre Stoa on March 16th and 17th, offering
non-stop theatre for children of all ages, even for babies. The events at Stoa
end with a workshop and seminar for makers of youth theatre with playwrights Jeremy Turner from Britain and Maria Ines
Falconi from Argentina.
The Hurraa! Festival is
organized by the cultural departments of the cities of Helsinki, Espoo and
Vantaa in cooperation with the Finnish ASSITEJ centre, Helsinki’s Theatre
Museum and the cultural department of Kauniainen.
The performances take place at cultural centres, youth
centres, multipurpose buildings and schools throughout Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa
and Kauniainen.
Tickets 4-5 euros, festival pass for all performances on
16th and 17th March at Stoa 20 euros.
Full details on all the acts (in Finnish and Swedish, with
some summaries in English), locations and the festival programme: www.hurraa.org