OuDance Festival

Dear OuDance festival guests, distinguished artists and dance lovers!

In September Oulu pulsates to the beat of dance. OuDance Festival opens its doors, offering us five days full of movement, emotion and thought-provoking performances. JoJo’s Artistic Select Committee has the pleasure and honor of warmly welcoming you all to this unique celebration of the art of dance.

Dance is a body language that we all recognize, even if we don’t understand it right away. It is a bodily speech that often does not bow to norms, or apologize. We live in a restless time, full of uncertainty and hardening language. In this day and age, art has an important function: to ask questions and challenge, to bring out and shake things up. And this is exactly what dance does at its best – it asks, jumps to two meters and finally leaves a mystery, but always lived out. The dance is not silent.

We are especially happy to be able to bring international and domestic performances of high quality to the Oulu audience. The festival’s program reflects the world we live in. The performances deal with heritage, identity, strength, inclusion and belonging. The festival moves both in the precision of martial arts and in the pressure of the community, and through humor, we delve into power and the internal dynamics of groups. The voice of Oulu has also been important to us. The New Generation ensemble brings the power of local young dancers to the stage and reminds us that the future is also happening NOW.

We want to offer experiences that will live on in us long after the performance has ended.

Welcome to enjoy!

Jouni Prittinen
Chair of the artistic select committee