Residencies

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. 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.

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. The sound residency’s will have the studio’s complete sound system at their use, other residencies’ technical parameters will be discussed individually.

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.