Teater Viirus, Helsinki: Viirus GUEST open call

Viirus Rf

Located in Helsinki, Finland, Theatre Viirus is a Swedish-language theatre founded in 1987.

Viirus is a contemporary, politically engaged, and socially critical theatre. The ensemble-based theatre with permanent artistic staff alongside guest artists serves Swedish-speaking audiences in Finland, but also a broader, multilingual and international audience (subtitles and bilingual work are common).

Viirus is known for strong contemporary drama and new writing with explicit engagement with politics, power, capitalism, climate, identity, and social structures and a willingness to experiment with form, not just content. We like collaborations across disciplines (performance art, music, theory, documentary material).

Within the Viirus GUEST-platform we curate 8-12 performances annually. In all biannual open call suggestions, we focus on originality, relationship with the audience, the clarity of the idea and what kind of an imprint the piece is trying to make in the world. The pieces can be a stage work or a site-specific production, but in case the piece is not performing arts, we are interested in how the piece comments, has a dialogue with or observes the performing arts and the performance context, for example the Viirus stage.

We offer the selected groups the venue, tech, staff, marketing and more.

The theatre has a reputation for being intellectually demanding and sometimes deliberately uncomfortable. We do not aim for broad entertainment; but positions ourselves as a critical voice within Nordic theatre.

Viirus is one of the most important Swedish-language theatres in Finland and are artistically closer to independent / post-dramatic theatre than to repertory institutions.

We are often compared (in ethos, not size) to politically driven theatres in Germany or the Nordic experimental scene.

Viirus is publicly funded (state + city), with additional project-based and foundation funding. We operate as a professional institution but with a clear artistic-political mission, not a commercial one.