Finland tour – Helsinki

Monday

Helsinki is as a southern Finnish city very different from Oulu. There is no snow, more sun and I am not in as much Vaseline need as I was the last few days.

Jani is welcoming us in the capital of Finland where he organized workshops for us. Our first stop is the place of Sinimaria, a good friend of ours. Her boyfriend is making us a very tasty reindeer meal for lunch.

In the evening Gerry teaches his workshop while I sit in the audience and catch up on some work. The players are all very different but committing fully. I got to see what the workshop promised: Better Scenes. Afterwards Jani, Gerry and me spend the rest of the night discussing improv until we conclude that our cognitive functions are decreasing quickly. It was a long day.

Tuesday

The best-known improv company in Finland is Stella Polaris and producer Sämpy offered us to give a tour. While hearing more about the long history of her group we saw more of the big city of Helsinki. Later in the afternoon we were also able to see more of Stella Polaris when visiting their theatre. It was a good environment to prepare the workshop of that night. But just before that, we met Jani again on the Torni tower and had a great view over the city.

The workshop took place in a nice big dance studio and quite some people attended. Afterwards most participants were super energetic and joined us for talks and drinks. It was really interesting to hear about one girl’s fire spitting skills and the other person’s childhood in Lapland.

After another night and traditional breakfast at Sinimaria and Matti’s place we took the car for our last stop: Tampere.