Moving in November brings an ambitious contemporary dance line-up to Helsinki

Amid funding cuts and a climate of uncertainty, Helsinki’s Moving in November festival returns with one of Finland’s most extensive contemporary dance programmes. Running 6–16 November 2025, the ten-day festival presents 15 works by both international and Finnish artists — many of which are rarely seen on local stages due to the typically short lifespans of dance productions in Finland.

Artistic director Kerstin Schroth frames the festival as more than just a series of performances:

“We are not merely ‘moving’ in November; we are setting out, closing our jackets and going, leaving something behind, heading towards the unknown. The whereto is not defined yet — but we are on the move.”

Curating this year’s edition under financial pressure felt, she says, like “planting a flower on a rock” or “planting trees in sand” — nurturing something delicate or enduring under difficult conditions.

International highlights

This year’s programme includes, among others:
• FRANK by Cherish Menzo – researching the monstrous as an embodiment of beliefs and narratives that terrify and horrify, and yet also attract us
• La Gouineraie by Rébecca Chaillon & Sandra Calderan — an intimate, playful attempt to recreate the perfect family through moments of celebration, loneliness and fantasy
• Fampitaha, fampita, fampitàna by Soa Ratsifandrihana — a rediscovered dialogue between the children of diasporas and their places of origin
• Work Body by Michael Turinsky — blending choreography, concert and political agitation to explore resonances between “disabled” and “working” bodies
• Don’t thank for the food by Antonia Atarah & co – a performative installation celebrating the BIPOC community and radical joy, where art, like food, is a necessity and should be accessible for everyone

Focus on the local landscape

Focus on the local landscape is an expanded programme based on cooperation, consisting of eight local artists or collectives presenting their works and proposals, including:
• Mabel Revival by Liisa Pentti +Co – a joyous and shameless mixture of dance, performance, and DIY cabaret
• DOWN BEAT by Mean Time Between Failures –  two performers chew gum and criticize of the instrumentalization of the female body, particularly in the male-dominated art world
• Conversations with Ants Evening by Sanna Kekäläinen – ants are a kind of biological and global double for humans: only ants and humans have spread all over the globe
• Quattro Stagioni by Elina Pirinen, Tom Rejström & Jenni-Elina von Bagh — described as “a four-part theatrical pizza”

The festival also hosts the informal Soup Talks discussion series and the Audience Club.