Residencies

TSC provides annually 2–4 artists or working groups the opportunity for a residency period at TSC Studio in Helsinki. The objective of the residencies is to serve as a platform for multidisciplinary experiments and to support especially freelance-based artists and collectives – thus aiming for the development of the dance field as a whole. The residency is open to artists and groups working interdisciplinarily in the performing arts field, exploring embodied expression and who need a space for their artistic work.

Equipped with a unique audio system made possible by Genelec, TSC Studio also acts as a laboratory for sound design of the highest level. Therefore, one of the residencies each year is dedicated especially for work focusing on the relationship between sound and movement. In TSC’s sound residencies, the artists are able to utilise TSC Studio’s immersive sound system in its entirety.

TSC Studio Residency 2025

The call for spring 2025 TSC Studio Residency has closed. We will individually notify all applicants about the selections by December 2024.

FEEDBACK ON THE RESIDENCIES

Yumi Collective at TSC Sound Residency

“During the Sound Residency our collective discovered that live creation of sound became an essential part of the research. The TSC Studio and its immersive sound system provided a lot of freedom for the layering of sounds, to which all members of the collective contributed with personal inputs. Creating the sound collectively gave it the most central role, which was further demonstrated by placing the sound station in the center of the space. Thanks to the amount of speakers, sounds could be layered and spread out quickly and effortlessly, which was super beneficial for the workflow. The sound system also guarantees that one can feel the sound in every square of the room.”

– Sebastian Kurtén, TSC Sound Residency Artist (July 2022)

Hagglund Viipuri Collective at TSC Sound Residency

”During the Sound Residency at TSC Studio, we took a deep dive into the relationship between sound and movement, creating new sound material while also examining the shape of our new performance. The studio’s immersive audio system enables totally new auditory perspectives, that might not even cross one’s mind in any other space… The residency was a pivotal experience for us. We felt so supported and learned a lot. As young artists we are truly grateful to have had the opportunity to work in an evironment, that encourages you to dream big!”

– Iida Hägglund and Maija Viipuri, (July 2021)

Sanni Giordani at TSC Studio Residency

”For us the residency acted as the starting point – and as a free playground – for the creation process of our new work. The space was wonderful and truly functional: the heated studio floor was really inviting and offered just enough traction and smoothness for our movement work, while the immersive audio system made the sound move together with the dancers.”

– Sanni Giordani, Mostly Mass Working Group (March 2021)

Focus on artistic work in TSC Studio

TSC provides annually 2–4 artists or working groups the opportunity for an artist in residency working period at TSC Studio in Helsinki. The objective of the residency programme is to support the development of the dance field in Finland by providing eg. choreographers, working groups and free collectives resources for artistic work in the form of a free rehearsal space. TSC Residencies are meant for artistic work such as creation of new works, rehearsing, or developing the artist’s individual movement language, choreographic material or artistic vision.

Artists are chosen to take part in TSC Residencies through an open application process. The residencies entail a 1–4 week long working period in Tero Saarinen Company’s recently opened TSC Studio. Taking into consideration each residency’s particular goals and needs, the residency period can include customized events for audiences and artistic or production-related mentoring from TSC’s permanent staff members.

Once a year, TSC holds a special sound residency focused on the relationship between sound and movement in a lab-like work setting. A sound residency’s goals can be in multidisciplinary experimentation, production oriented creative process or developing one’s artistic expertise. Artists for the sound residencies will be chosen through an international application process. The sound residencies are held in collaboration with Genelec, our partner behind the immersive sound system of TSC Studio. The sound residency’s will have the studio’s complete sound system at their use, other residencies’ technical parameters will be discussed individually. The residency period available in January 2023 is not a Sound Residency.

IMMERSIVE SOUND GENERATES A PHYSICAL EXPERIENCE

TSC Studio is equipped with 22 speakers and two calibration systems. The immersive audio system creates a powerful, holistically physical experience for the listener that evokes an emotional dimension.

The system has been designed by TSC’s permanent Artist in Residence and Sound Designer since 2017, Tuomas Norvio.

“An extremely sharp sound image is traced out in TSC Studio, where even the smallest details in accents and dynamics of the sound can be heard. Even when applying the strongest sound pressures, the sound is pure, and the system functions optimally both in design work and in performance. There is no system quite like it in Finland – and even globally it is unparalleled with the most similar being in the depths of great opera houses.

What most interests me in the potential offered by TSC Studio is working with non-directional sound: when sound has no distinctive direction of source, that the listener can perceive, it can feel as if the experience happens inside the listener, getting under their skin in quite special way”, Norvio describes.

The sound system has been made possible by the pioneer of professional audio and immersive audio technology, Genelec, which develops and manufactures its products in Iisalmi, Finland.

“Our goal is to bring forth the deeper and more content-oriented dimensions mutual to advanced technology and art – and to create something unique together with them. Long-term, value-based collaboration with Tero Saarinen Company gives us a chance to experiment and create something new for people, and to learn from each other. TSC Studio is a unique platform, through which we can also help future creators to achieve their dreams and to promote the development of art and society,” states Genelec Brand Artist and Board member Juho Martikainen, responsible for the concept of the collaboration.

PREVIOUS WORKING GROUPS

2024 | Charo Calvo

In Summer Sound Residency, the moving body acts as an instrument for music and composition. Charo Calvo, composer of electroacoustic music and former dancer, has just finished a research of two years about physical movement and sound spatial movement. At TSC Studio, Calvo is joined by sound designer Christophe Albertini and choreographer-dancer Bahar Temiz. The sound material generated by the movement will create a multi-channel composition incorporating acoustic and electronic materials.

2024 | Jenni Kivelä & Kiltit ihmiset

Project Afterlife by Jenni Kivelä & Kiltit ihmiset seeks ways to connect with the dead and asks whether it is possible to find a space where one can still be in contact with a late someone.

In addition to choreographer Jenni Kivelä, the creative team also includes dance artists Ninu Lindfors and Linda Holma, lighting and video designer Teo Lanerva, costume designer Liisa Pesonen, producer Inari Pesonen and sound designer Joonas Outakoski.

2023 | Kauhanen–Sheehan

Musician-composers Maija Kauhanen and Hugh Sheehan form an artistic duo that uses the Finnish traditional instrument kantele together with electronics, home-made instruments, and human-computer interfaces. Their work explores the internal characteristics of sound, and experimental improvisation and performance processes. During their Sound Residency in summer 2023, Kauhanen and Sheehan conducted experiments in both the audience’s, and performers’ position, movement and gesture. Utilising TSC Studio’s immersive audio system, they explored the characteristics of spatial audio as thematic and motivic origin. Their aim was to devise material as a basis for future performances and recordings.

2023 | Post Breakers' Revenge

In January 2023 Dennis Nylund, Antti Uimonen and Anniina Tikka worked on their new project Post Breakers’ Revenge. During their Studio Residency they initiated their movement-based research to study the identity and movement language of aging breakdancers. Within the research group, they wanted to create more space in the breaking culture for people whose interests and values might vary through aging and changing life conditions.

2022 | Kemppainen–Sallinen–Maunuksela

In summer 2022, choreographer Suvi Kemppainen, composer Walter Sallinen and dramaturg Klaus Maunuksela worked towards their new stage work From a great height: a choreographic sonic ceremony that examines subsidence, transgression and love for grief. It is an eerie invitation into an underwater world of the hidden depths and transgressing powers, playing with the emancipatory potentials of lamentation.

2022 | Yumi Collective

In the second sound residency in July 2022, the multi-disciplinary Yumi Collective (Sebastian Kurten, Simeoni Juoperi, Antti Uimonen and Hamis Zzy) worked on their first staged work at TSC Studio. Inspired by the ‘Gömböc’ shape, their creation will examine balance and its reciprocative nature through sound and movement.

2022 | Tiia Kasurinen

In January 2022 artist and choreographer Tiia Kasurinen worked on a new staged work SURFACE, together with a team. Kasurinen’s dance performance is a crooked fairytale and an antithesis for children’s stories; a humoristic, yet harrowing perspective on existing under the gaze. SURFACE will premiered in Kuopio City Theatre on 24 November, 2022.

2022 | Nuua Company

In April 2022 contemporary circus artist and founder of Nuua Company, Olli Vuorinen, was developing an upcoming solo piece Blueberry Burdock, directed by Thomas Monckton. With the “curiosity of a juggler”, Vuorinen’s aim was to study new means of object manipulation and expressions of bodily movement.

2023 | Amos Rex – Generation 2023

Anette Toiviainen‘s and Iiris Puustinen’s residency periods in spring 2023 marked the beginning of a new collaboration between Tero Saarinen Company and Amos Rex, aimed at supporting and elevating emerging artists in the field of performing arts. Dancer Anette Toiviainen’s Duet was created during a time when human contact happened through safe distancing. This solo performance explores the juxtaposition of life and inanimate objects, loneliness, and longing. Iiris Puustinen’s 3, 2, 1 (The Walk) emerged from the choreographer’s curiosity in exploring the potential intersections between dance and fashion. These works were showcased in the spring as part of the Generation 2023 exhibition in the performing arts program.

2022 | URX x Nordic Hiphop to the Stage

TSC began a new collaboration with Kiasma Theatre’s annual street art and culture festival URB, and Nordic Hiphop to the Stage, an international project funded by Nordisk kulturfund and Nordisk kulturkontakt, that aims to build an institutionally backed network for collaborations in the sphere of street culture and performance arts. In March TSC provided an artistic residency at TSC Studio for dancers Hamis Zzy and Siiri Korkeamäki. During their two-week residency, Hamis and Siiri created movement material for their new solos that are part of URB’s EU funded Be Part project. Their works are to be seen on 7–9 June at URB’s programme at Stoa Helsinki, as a part of a full evening performance, created by the French Art Move Concept and Nordic Hiphop to the Stage. Photo: Kansallisgalleria / Petri Virtanen

Info and enquiries:

For further information on the residency programme, applications and TSC Studio, please contact Head of Production Carita Weissenfelt.

Carita Weissenfelt
carita.weissenfelt@terosaarinen.com