Residency

Pia Kalenius & Antti-Juhani Manninen

Duration

1 – 14 February 2027

Dolphin who lived in the house (courtesy of Manipulate Arts)

Residency Types

International Visual Theatre Residency Partnership

Artforms

Theatre

Image: Dolphin who lived in the house (courtesy of Manipulate Arts)

PETER – Dolphin, who lived in the house (Finland) is a puppet theatre piece telling the story of Peter, a dolphin captured from the ocean and brought to live in a house. Blending fact and imagination, the piece explores questions of captivity, human intervention and our relationship with other species.

During the Cove Park Residency, the duo will study the relationship and communication between people and other animals and examine the paradox of empathy.

Pia Kalenius

Pia Kalenius is a puppet theater artist based in Turku Finland. She has graduated from Turku Arts Academy/ Puppet theatre department and she is one of the pioneers of the new wave of Finnish puppetry.

From 2003 Kalenius has worked broadly in the field of performing arts: as a director, designer, author, puppeteer and puppet maker in numerous projects especially in freelancer field but also in city theatres. Kalenius is a founding member of Aura of Puppets puppetry network, board member in Tehdas Theatre and trouper in the Puppet theatre Kuuma Ankanpoikanen.

In her work Kalenius is specially interested in the relationship between puppet and a puppeteer, life vs lifeless, visual storytelling and the otherness and uncannyness of the puppet.

Antti-Juhani Manninen

Antti-Juhani Manninen is an artist working extensively across live performance and sound. His practice moves between theatre, puppetry, performance art, music and experimental forms, often combining and challenging conventional artistic roles and modes of authorship.

Manninen has been involved in the creation of more than 100 premieres and performance concepts, most often as director, composer or co-author. His work has been presented at the Helsinki Festival, Publics, Mad House, Museum of Impossible Forms, Kiasma, Titanik Gallery, Turku City Theatre, Ruisrock, New Performance Turku, Barker Theatre, Kutomo and Tehdas Theatre, as well as at the Salon de Normandy in Paris, Nordic Performing Arts Days and numerous other art events in Finland and internationally.

Alongside his artistic practice, Manninen has been active in developing platforms and contexts for experimental and interdisciplinary work. He served for several years on the board of Titanik Gallery, co-organising performance and experimental writing programmes and large-scale off-site projects. He is a founding member of the Aura of Puppets puppetry network, the puppet theatre Kuuma Ankanpoikanen, and the mobile art event Breathing, where he works as artist-curator. He has also served on the artistic committees of Tehdas Theatre and the Turku International Puppetry Festival, and on the board of the Finnish Theatre Center Teatterikeskus.

Taking place in early 2027, the International Visual Theatre Residency is a new initiative delivered in partnership with Manipulate Arts and international festival partners Arrivano dal Mare! (Ravenna, Italy), TIP-Fest (Turku, Finland) and Go Figure! (Oslo, Norway). The programme supports mid-stage development for ambitious visual theatre projects, creating space for artistic exchange, experimentation, and the development of high-quality new work.

Six projects from artists across Scotland, Finland, Italy and Norway will be supported. Audiences will be able to check out early performance sharings of these projects as part of Undercurrents, Manipulate Arts’ new event championing bold, untested new visual theatre, puppetry and animated film in February 2027.

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