HISTORY
The Finnish centre of ASSITEJ was established in 1975. It is a co-operative organisation with 54 members, including professional theatres, amateur theatres, theatre organisations and individual members with a professional interest. The activities are funded by both the membership fees and by the support from the Finnish Ministry of Education. The work is done on a voluntary basis.
The national aims are to support theatre for children and young people in order for it to be recognised as artistic work, to promote the development and research in this field and to improve the arts education for children and young people.
THE MOST REMARKABLE ACHIEVEMENT
The most remarkable achievement in this field has been the introduction of the subject of children's theatre to be included in the curriculum at the Finnish Theatre Academy, which is one of the Arts Universities in Finland. This Bravo! Project between 1998-2000 resulted in a decision that theatre for children and young people has a permanent place in the academic studies of our future actors and theatre directors.
The next Bravo! festival is arranged in March 2008. All guests are welcome!
THE FINNISH CENTRE OF ASSITEJ BOARD:
Chair
Lotta Nevalainen-Tomásek (lotta.nevalainen[at]assitejfi.org)
Sanna Silvennoinen
Kirsi Herala
Hanna Azeredo
Päivi Aura
Satu Paavola
Irina Pulkka
Secretary:
Outi Sädekallio (outi.sadekallio[at]assitejfi.org)
INTERNATIONAL ACTIVITIES
The international activities of the Finnish Assitej are strongly connected with the co-operation between the Nordic countries: festivals and seminars are regularly arranged in co-operation and we also have several co- operational projects in order to support the new centres in the Baltic countries. The Finnish Assitej has also given financial support to the work of the Secretary General during the last three year period.
The Bravo! Project initiated a new co-operation between other European Assitej-centres too. In the year 2000 there were 9 European cities nominated as "Culture Capitols of Europe"; Avignon, Bergen, Bologna, Brussels, Krakow, Helsinki, Prague, Reykjavik and Santiago de Compostela. The Assitej World Project Bravo! invited all the centres in these respective countries to participate in the creation of Bravo! festival in March 2000. The success of the event created a new festival in Finland: the Bravo! 2002 introduced theatre for children from Denmark, France, Czech Republic and Spain to Finnish children via performances, workshops and discussions.
