Dead end: 12/10/26

Kuopio Dance Festival invites mid-career dance artists and companies to 20-minute programme meetings with Artistic Director Samuli Emery.

Where: Wien, Lissabon, Stockholm, Kuopio, Helsinki and online

When: summer-autumn 2026

Deadline for applications: 12.10.2026

Kuopio Dance Festival organises several opportunities for dance makers and companies to meet and connect with the festival’s artistic director Samuli Emery. The purpose of the meetings is to offer a chance for dance artists and companies to present their work and ideas in a relaxed setting and get to know the festival.

This open call is aimed at mid-career artists who have at least 7 years of professional experience as a dance maker and some prior experience of touring their work in festival settings. A producer or manager may represent the artist or the company in the meeting.

 In this open call we wish to connect with artists and companies who create:

– tourable high quality dance works created for outdoor and public spaces
– tourable high quality dance works aimed at young audiences
– tourable high quality dance works that use street, club, folk and/or social dance practises as their main movement language (for example flamenco, krumping, bharatanatyam, dabke etc.

The meetings will take place in various cities and online in Teams throughout summer and autumn 2026. Each meeting will be 20-minutes long and conducted in either English or Finnish.

The meetings may include presentations of past works, upcoming projects or both. Please bring clear visuals, references and/or video material as well as some information on the works’ spatial and technical needs. We are also happy to hear thoughts on how the work relates to dance, art and the world we live in.

The 20-minute long meeting times can be booked directly through the festival’s website. The registrations will open on Monday 13.07.2026 from 13:00 onwards (Finnish Time Zone, Easter European Summer Time, GMT+3) and will be filled out on a first come first serve basis. There are four available meeting slots on each day. Please only reserve a meeting slot if your work matches with what we are looking for in this open call.

How to apply:
The meeting times can be booked directly through the festival’s website: https://kuopiodancefestival.fi/kauppa/

Contact details:
Sanni Kirjavainen
press@kuopiodancefestival.fi
+358 (0) 50 381 6358

For further information, please visit https://kuopiodancefestival.fi/en/kauppa/?wpf_filter_cat_0=404&wpf_fbv=1