Vamos made its international debut this month, we were delighted to take our work to Jyvaskyla Festival in Finland. Celebrating its 60th season in 2015, Jyvaskyla Festiva is Finland’s longest established city festival hosting theatre, concerts, rock, pop and world music and a diverse programme of participation events for children and adults.
Vamos took its production Finding Joy to the festival, performing to over 900 people on two nights, as well as introducing our Walkabout to the good (and cuddly) people of Finland, and leading a professional development training workshop in a local school. All events were practically sold out, and enthusiastically received, including a standing ovation on the first night of Finding Joy.
We'd like to send a very big thank you to the wonderful people we met in Finland, and who helped make our international debut such a success: Marko, the stage manager, who built our costume boards for us: head lighting technician, Mika, for making us look lovely: head honcho host, Hanna, for whom nothing was too much trouble: festival organiser, Maarit Saarelainen, who was the most supportive, attentive and warm human being; Sampsa, our personal host, who looked after our every need, and was intelligent, funny, helpful and became a good friend. Most of all, special thanks go to festival manager, Tanja Rasi for being utterly delightful, for believing in Vamos from the start, and for working for 18 months to get us to Finland. We're looking forward to coming back!