& Audience

On this page, we’re excited to share the stories of our audience.
Kicking off the series is Jamie, who first discovered our theatre during a student project at Aalto University. Since then, Jamie has been back to enjoy international guest performances in English, as well as a Finnish-language production, using our surtitles app for translation.
Jamie
In many ways, arts and culture are how I find meaning in life. They play a very prominent role for me. We did a citizen engagement project at Aalto for Espoo Theatre, which was how I visited it for the first time. I've gone to theatre performances here in Finland more than I have in London.
I crave something that challenges me. This might come from attending many exhibitions where the goal is less about entertainment and more about expanding how you see the world. If it's not challenging, it's almost disappointing.
So, I look for something unusual, a bit experimental, that delves into topics I’m interested in. Take Antigone in the Amazon for example. I was interested in its multimedia format, that it was not a traditional play format, and its potential to inform me about the world. Plus, I loved that it included elements of music and filmmaking.
The Focus Gent festival was great because it felt engaging. You could look up the performances and find reviews in the New York Times. It felt like being at the forefront of theatre.
Oikeusvaltio Espoo was also interesting. It felt like one of my biggest engagements with Finnish culture since I've been here as a student. I’ve sometimes felt a bit removed from Finnish culture, so it was enlightening, much like Antigone in the Amazon. It was like peering into a different world, learning about the dynamics of Finnish culture and maybe the archetypes of Finnish people. So yeah, it was interesting.
Your surtitle app was another interesting experience. The setup was very intuitive, so there were no concerns using it during the performance. One characteristic of that play was that there were many actors on stage, often speaking simultaneously. Despite that, I managed to follow the performance quite well. There was even a Finnish person sitting beside me who was really curious about the app. They had heard about it but never seen it in use. We explained how it worked, which was nice.
Photos Darina Rodionova


