SAMPO Festival
International Puppet Theatre Festival
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Performances
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Outdoor events
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Exhibitions
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Workshops
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Discussions
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Festival Club
SAMPO Festival 2023 will take place 23.-27.8.2023!
SAMPO Festival offers memorable, touching and entertaining performances for children and adults. One of the biggest puppetry festivals in Finland, SAMPO Festival showcases artists from across the field, different styles of puppetry and visual theatre, and crosses borders between different fields of art. In addition to performances, the program also features films, workshops, outdoor performances, discussions and diverse artist meetings.
SAMPO Festival gives a place for encountering, also for professional puppeteers.
SAMPO Festival is a curated festival and we invite performing groups from around the world.
The sixth SAMPO Festival was organized with great success 24.-28.8.2022.
Our program in 2022 featured professional puppeteers from the United Kingdom, France, Czech Republic, Slovenia and Greece and Finland. There were performances for children and adults in the program.
In addition to the official program, there were workshops, films, outdoor performances, exhibitions, a masterclass, a symposium on diversity and inclusivity and talks about puppetry. The Symposium on Diversity and Accessibility in Nordic Puppetry on Wednesday 24.8. in Annantalo was also streamed online on Sampos Youtube-channel.
The trailers for SAMPO 2022 Festival:
SAMPO Festivals:
SAMPO 2017 – 29.8-3.9.2017
SAMPO 2018 – 22.-26.8.2018
SAMPO 2019 – 28.8.-1.9.2019
SAMPO XX – 26.-30.8.2020
SAMPO 2021 – 25.-29.8.2021
SAMPO 2022 – 24.-28.8.2022
The program books of the earlier festivals can be looked at at the bottom of the page.
Jenni Haukio was the patron of the 2022 SAMPO Festival. You can read here greeting to the festival here.
WELCOME TO A WORLD OF STORIES!
The Festival is organized by Puppet Theatre Sampo, that was founded in 1977 and has its premises in the center of Helsinki.
We invite people of all ages, shapes and sizes to enjoy the cosy atmosphere of our Puppet Theatre Centre and see puppetry performances for children and adults. We offer also art education: workshops and theme days. Sampo´s Fairytale Café is also open to the public at the theatre.
We are driven by imagination, humor and music. Welcome to be inspired by them! You may find some happiness, the treasure of friendship, a sparkle of joy in the middle of a busy day.
A joint international project as a part of SAMPO Festival 2023
SAMPO Festival is involved in an international co-operation that will bring the young Ukrainian researcher and director Kateryna Lukianenko to Helsinki. The project, called “The Sixth Sense” explores the sensory theater format to develop inclusive performances where everything can be understood by sighted and blind spectators, adults and children.
The project was initiated by Lukianenko in Kyiv as a part of her research and teaching at the Kyiv National I. K. Karpenko – Kary University of Theatre, Cinema and Television. The performances are open to all types of spectators, adults and children, who are blindfolded so that everyone can enjoy the show in the same way. Spectators are invited to use all five senses (a 5D theater, as children in Ukraine called it) to discover a “sixth sense” capable of making people equal as spectators despite their disabilities. Taste, smell, tactile, auditory and visual sensations are involved in the representations: it is a performance of sensations.
Thanks to this project, many people have had the opportunity to access the theater for the first time. Furthermore, this project shows acting from a completely different perspective where the actor is no longer someone to be observed, but has to strive to find new tools and strategies to communicate and connect with the audience.
Sixth Sense Theater starts from this research project and is structured as an international collaboration between SAMPO Festival, the Arrivano dal Mare! Festival in Ravenna, Italy, and Summer Puppet Pier in Maribor, Slovenia, under the supervision of Daria Ivanova (UNIMA Union Internationale de la Marionnette). The project involves the creation, in the three Festivals, of a professional masterclass curated by Lukianenko which will be followed by three outcomes open to the public, specifically to the blind and visually impaired. Furthermore, the translation and publication of Lukianenko’s research in English, Italian, Finnish and Slovenian will be carried out. The project is winner of EFFEA European Fund for Emerging Artists.
Pictures from the Sixth Sense Theatres production “Who Grows In The Park?”
FESTIVAL CLUB
The SAMPO Festival Club provides a meeting place for artists and the public at the festival. Get ready for memorable conversations about the performances and everything else, exhilarating meetings, serious and less serious subjects, laughter and relaxing!
Elina’s Living Room
Elina’s Living Room will take place in the auditorium of Puppet Theatre Sampo. Discussions about the performances of the festival, the life of a puppet artist, art, miracles and mysteries of everyday life. The evening is hosted by puppet theater artist and director Elina Lajunen.
EXHIBITIONS
There are exhibitions on the festival, giving you a chance to get to know more about puppetry.
Puppets From Around the World
This exhibition about the wonderful world of theatre puppets is a permanent exhibition at Puppet Theatre Sampo. The visitor can explore puppet traditions of different cultures and see puppets from around the globe from the 19th century to the present.
