The Tampere/Helsinki improv scene

Tampere

I have recently travelled a lot to Tampere to train with my lovely duo partner Jenni from our improv duo Jeeves! The duo was  born out of a desire to do improv with strong emotional characterwork, and perhaps deeper storylines. Jenni and I originally met in the Helsinki based English speaking Group Not a Hospital and one evening last summer started talking about our improv dreams, which sounded very alike. An idea was formed, of perhaps starting an improv duo, and it was left to brew for a few months.

Jeeves! summoning the essence of an object (Photo: Rebekka)

The time to actualise starting an imrpov duo arose quite suddenly one saturday in January, as Jenni messaged me if I would join a course run by YesFinland, and perform the next day at YesKlubi. And so I booked a train ticket to Tampere and we were in training mode the next morning, being guided by the wonderful Jutta Tilvis. We had our first Performance at YesKlubi that evening and have been training and performing regularly ever since. We have been experimenting with a few ideas for duo formats, and the one that seems to suit us the most is a format, that allows for lots of edits and different types of scenes. 

Trent Pancy of YesFinland and guest teacher Jochem Meyer 

Helsinki

This spring I have been on a couple courses organised in Helsinki by the recently founded Suomen Impro-opisto. Impro-opisto is run by two amazing women Kaisa Kokko and Sara Palmer. I have been to a few of Kaisa's courses and I have love her humane approach to improv. Her philosophy is that people can come to her courses as they are on that particular day. Such a premise for an improv course makes it really liberating to improvise - there is no pressure to produce anything. And of course it happens that in such a free environment cool things are often produced, just because people are enjoying themselves and the group. The ladies at Suomen Impro-opisto host also two monthly shows: one at Pinehill terrace called Torstai-improt, and one at teatteri Ilmiö called Helsinki Impro experience. 

Kaisa Kokko, Linda Gustafsson, Sara Palmer and Julia Petäjä at Helsinki Impro Experience

And so it happened that last Thursday we had a show with the guys from Impro-opisto in Helsinki at the Torstai-improt show. For once, Jenni got to travel to Helsinki. The performance was at a really cosy pub called Pinehill near the Olympic stadium in Helsinki. We had 30 minutes of stage time and we were coached by Kaisa the previous evening. We decided to do a format inspired by the Harold game Invocation, in which we use the ideas generated in the invocation as inspiration for freeform scene play. The hosts and the audience felt really welcoming and we had a lovely time performing for them. Afterwards we received some good notes from Sara, which give us a good direction of where to go next. It feels like this was the point where we are starting to find our voice as an improv duo. I am very excited for the future. 

Jeeves! performed at Pinehill terrace at the Torstai-improt klubi (Photo: Jussi)

A cat owner lost her eyeball (Photo: Jussi)

There are of course a lot of other great improv shows and courses in both Tampere and Helsinki, but I have now written only about the ones that I have been most in touch with recently. Another favourite of mine from Helsinki is the small, but passionate swedish speaking group IMP, who host some great guest workshops and a fun monthly improv drop in. Other cities of course have their own exciting improv things going on, for example Turku hosts an improv festival this May. The improv scene in Finland is growing, and our Helsinki/Tampere based duo will grow in experience along it. 

Suomen Impro-opisto / Finland Improv School  

https://www.improhelsinki.com/

Shows: Torstai-improt once a month in Pinehill Terrace. Helsinki Impro experience once a month in teatteri Ilmiö.

Courses: A varitey of courses on improv are taught by Sara Palmer and Kaisa Kokko. The school also hosts guest workshops. 

 

 YesFinland   

https://yesfinland.com/
Shows: YesKlubi , an improv club in Teerenpeli, Tampere at 19.00 on Sundays. Every other week is in english and every other week in finnish. 
Courses: The YesFinland improv school is run by American improviser Trent Pancy and has courses tailored mainly for comedic improv, as well as workshops with guest teachers.