Sivuun Ensemble & Kallo Collective: Neighbour
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Duration
1 H 10 min (no intermission)
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Venue
Pannu Hall
Show times
Thu 8.10.2026 at 18.30
Fri 9.10.2026 at 18.30
Sat 10.10.2026 at 14
Please note
The performance uses theatrical smoke.
In addition
The event is part of Sivuun Ensemble’s 15th anniversary year together with the Jarmo Saari Republic & independent dance artists concert.
Artist talk on Fri 9 Oct after the performance.
Introduction
A performance for everyone who has ever had a neighbour!
“Hi, neighbour! Please don’t dry fish or smoke in the laundry room, thanks.”
Combining physical comedy and theatre, aerial acrobatics and contemporary dance, Naapuri is a circus performance about living side by side in an apartment building. At its best, living together with different kinds of people can be wonderfully effortless, but it can just as easily prove completely impossible – and sometimes it is both at once. The performance is built around absurd situations arising from the different ways in which people of different generations and backgrounds inhabit shared spaces.
“The busybody, the introvert and the partygoer – a humorous performance portrays the many kinds of neighbours we have”
– Helsingin Sanomat
Naapuri explores the possibilities of empathy and the outer limits of tolerance as rules take shape – as well as those moments when everyday distortions become the new normal. The work’s off-kilter world charmingly weaves together exuberant black humour and touching poetic sensitivity. Naapuri balances on the line between neighbourly love and misanthropy, in the middle of a minefield of absurd notes left for fellow residents.
“To make hanging above the audience look this effortless and to sparkle as only an apartment-block busybody dreaming of becoming an opera diva can.”
– puhuttelevaa.blogspot.com
The whole world contained within a single stairwell.
Neighbor brings to the viewer’s peephole a deliciously recognisable neighbourhood and its lovable and irritating residents. Through their encounters, the work opens up at times painful perspectives on broader social questions of our time. Its themes draw on research into neighbourhoods and suburban life.
Suburban neighbourhoods have had their imagined golden age, when neighbours knew one another, children ran around the courtyards together, fair-minded caretakers kept an eye on things, and communal work parties took care of the rest.
This was followed by an age of individualism, when the home became an almost closed-off space, neighbours ringing the doorbell were stopped at the threshold, noise and outsiders prompted complaints, and the sense of community narrowed.
Now we are once again living through a new era of community, in which active residents organise events and even communal work parties have become a kind of performance. Tolerance and liberal values are defended, but they have very clear limits: you can make noise, as long as the music is considered good!
What happens when all these layers of residential culture exist at the same time, in the same stairwell? When generations change, men become marginalised, unfamiliar smells enter the building, and life has increasingly been lived through screens. The result is friction and collision, but sometimes also alliances and moments of mutual understanding.
Naapuri draws its humour from the details of living under the same roof: silent nods in the lift, irritating noises, the invisible rules governing shared spaces, and the contradiction that arises when a person wants to be part of a community – but only on their own terms.
Filled with the absurdity of everyday life, Naapuri reveals the ridiculous, painful and beautiful core of living under the same roof – the point where house rules and life itself collide.
Credits
Direction and choreography in collaboration with the performers: Ninni Perko
Performers: Inga Björn, Jukka Tarvainen, Kaisa Niemi, Krista-Julia Arppo
Music and sound design: Jarmo Saari
Set and costume design: Mirkka Nyrhinen
Lighting design and show operation: Jaakko Sirainen
Choreographer’s assistant: Jenni Kallo
Dramaturgical support: Riikka Laakso
Expert consultant: social anthropologist Pekka Tuominen
Introduction and post-show discussion: Saara Moisio
Mixing: Paavo Malmberg
Set construction: Lavasteverstas Graniitti
Costume sewing: Minna Kiiskinen and Mirkka Nyrhinen
Producers: Juliane Mikkonen and Sari Lakso
Photos: Tanja Ahola
Trailer and performance photos: Darina Rodionova
In addition to the original music, the performance includes excerpts from Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen (1875), a studio improvisation by Jarmo Saari Republic (Abdissa Assefa, Olavi Louhivuori and Jarmo Saari, 2020), and the aria “Casta diva” from Vincenzo Bellini’s opera Norma (1831; 1960 recording, soprano Maria Callas, Coro & Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala, conducted by Tullio Serafin).
Meet the Team
Ninni Perko
Ninni Perko is the artistic director of Sivuun Ensemble and an award-winning choreographer. Her multidisciplinary works have explored themes including intimate partner violence, intergenerationality and the environmental crisis. She has studied dance, directing, dramaturgy and physical theatre in Finland and the Netherlands. Perko is currently working with a three-year artist grant from the Finnish Cultural Foundation for 2025–2028.
Inga Björn
Inga Björn is a versatile circus artist and actor who has worked in dozens of performance projects as an actor, aerial acrobat and clown. She has also worked in film, television and at the Finnish National Theatre, and works as a choreographer and circus instructor. Björn is a founding member of contemporary circus company Blind Gut Company and a member of Kallo Collective.
Jukka Tarvainen
Jukka Tarvainen is a Helsinki-based freelance dance artist who graduated from the Theatre Academy with a Master of Arts in Dance in 2009. He has performed in more than 50 works and choreographed over 15 productions. His recent work includes Impro & Plié (2025) and Surussa (2024) as a performer, and Asiaintuntija (2025) and Gatugallup (2024) as a choreographer. Tarvainen is a founding member of Lepo Collective, which focuses on contemporary theatre. His artistic practice combines dance, theatre, music, parkour and acrobatics.
Kaisa Niemi
Kaisa Niemi graduated as a dancer from the Theatre Academy in 2003 and has since worked widely across the performing arts. She has spent most of her career as a freelancer, working with companies and artists including G&G, Sivuun Ensemble, Petri Kekoni Company, Sari Palmgren and Myllyteatteri. From 2015 to 2017, she was a member of Helsinki Dance Company. Niemi also works as a hospital clown.
Krista-Julia Arppo
Krista-Julia Arppo (b. 1992) is a dancer and performance artist whose work combines poetry, dance and sound. She graduated from the Theatre Academy in 2018 and has also studied creative writing. As a dancer, she is particularly interested in the performer’s inner world, drama and emotion. Arppo is a member of the international Muddiverse collective.
Jarmo Saari
Jarmo Saari is a musician and composer who has performed in more than 30 countries and on over 100 albums. He received the Finland Prize in 2012 for his artistic work. Saari is known for his highly visual compositional style for the performing arts and film, and for multilayered sound collages created with guitar, voice, electronics and unusual instruments such as the theremin, baroque cello and glass harp.
Mirkka Nyrhinen
Mirkka Nyrhinen has worked as a freelance designer across dance, theatre and circus since 2004. In addition to costume design, she creates complete visual concepts for productions. Her work is guided by both artistic ambition and ecological thinking, with a particular interest in how the performing arts can be created in ways that respect the environment.
Jaakko Sirainen
Jaakko Sirainen (b. 1995) is a Tampere-based lighting designer who has worked in the performing arts since 2016. He is particularly inspired by the versatility of light, reflected in both the range of his work and the diversity of his visual expression. In dance, Sirainen is fascinated by the ways in which the body and movement can affect audiences emotionally, even through subtle gestures.
Jenni Kallo
Jenni Kallo has built a 30-year international career in circus and physical comedy. Trained in Finland and France, she has played an important role in developing and promoting non-verbal comedy and clowning in Finland and internationally. Alongside her work with Kallo Collective, she performs and directs across the performing arts. She is currently working with a five-year state artist grant.
Riikka Laakso
Riikka Laakso works across the field of dance as a writer, lecturer and dramaturg. She completed her doctorate in the performing arts at the Autonomous University of Barcelona in 2016 and teaches performance analysis and dance history at Institut del Teatre in Barcelona and at the Theatre Academy in Helsinki. She has worked as a dramaturg with Marina Mascarell on international projects and has explored the poetics of Sanna Kekäläinen through her writing.
Pekka Tuominen
Pekka Tuominen, PhD, is a social and cultural anthropologist and urban researcher whose work focuses on transformations of urban space. His doctoral dissertation examined the moral dimensions of urban space in Istanbul and, more broadly, urban ways of life. He works as a university researcher at the University of Helsinki and is also a member of the Kontula Electronic working group.
Saara Moisio
Saara Moisio is a dance scholar and arts professional. She received her PhD in 2022 from the University of Helsinki, where her research focused on audience experiences of contemporary dance and the dynamics of value formation. She has worked in communications, marketing and audience engagement at IHME Helsinki and has taught courses on spectatorship and embodiment in performance. Moisio has been a member of the board of Sivuun Ensemble since 2024.
Paavo Malmberg
Paavo Malmberg is a music producer, sound designer, composer and musician working across the performing arts. He has worked both on the independent scene and in institutional theatres, including Tampere Workers’ Theatre, Svenska Teatern and Helsinki City Theatre, and also works as Yona’s live sound engineer. In autumn 2023, he performed in Pyöreän pöydän ritarit at Tampere Workers’ Theatre and composed music for the production.
Sari Lakso
Sari Lakso, Master of Arts in Dance, has extensive experience across the performing arts. She graduated as a dancer from the Theatre Academy in 1990. In addition to her career as a dance artist, she has worked as a producer and executive director in contemporary circus. She has worked with Kallo Collective since 2016.
Juliane Mikkonen
Juliane Mikkonen is a producer and dramaturg who studied Theatre Studies at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. In Germany, she worked at institutions including Münchner Volkstheater and Oper Frankfurt, as well as in television and film production. In Finland, she works as a producer with Myllyteatteri and Sivuun Ensemble. She has previously worked with the artist group Sivuhenkilöt and the Tampere-based FinNomads collective.
Sivuun Ensemble
Sivuun Ensemble is a Helsinki-based dance theatre company founded in 2011. Its performances are characterised by a strong dialogue between different art forms. Movement, music, image and text are woven into collage-like works that open up new perspectives on topical issues relevant to both individuals and communities. The company’s acclaimed works have been presented by organisations and festivals including & Espoo Theatre, Turku City Theatre, Kuopio Dance Festival and April Jazz, as well as at international festivals. Sivuun Ensemble is led by award-winning choreographer and director Ninni Perko.
Instragram: @sivuunensemble
Kallo Collective
Kallo Collective is an internationally acclaimed contemporary circus company specialising in physical theatre and clowning. Its high-quality, non-verbal performances for audiences of different ages have captivated audiences around the world. Kallo Collective was founded in 2009 by Finnish artists Jenni Kallo and Sampo Kurppa and New Zealand artist Thomas Monckton.
Instragram: @kallocollective
Director’s Note
Neighbour was sparked both by my personal history as a neighbour and by a broader hardening of values in society. I am interested in how rules and shared cultures of behaviour are formed, and in the distortions they can produce. How does a community or society tip into a new order, and how do we enable oppressive conditions – or break them?
Artistically, Neighbour has been developed in search of a new language, probing the limits and possibilities of physical comedy and contemporary dance in relation to one another. The expertise and vision of a multidisciplinary creative team are brought to life by professionals in contemporary dance, clowning, aerial acrobatics, parkour and acting. Throughout the creation process, the working cultures of dance theatre company Sivuun Ensemble and contemporary circus company Kallo Collective have collided, adapted and gradually merged.
I learned the healing and protective power of laughter from my grandmother. In Neighbour, I offer dark humour as a way of coping when the world feels broken and chaotic. We throw ourselves into the embrace of physical comedy, drawing breath and lightness from it in the midst of heavy times. At the same time, through situations created on stage, we scratch open the scars that this era of crises and the fears it generates leave on us every day.
Through the means of the performing arts, I seek to create glimpses of equal encounters, solidarity and the possibility that, together, we can change the direction of this imbalance. At its core, the work is about how we relate to our fellow human beings.
Suvilahti, 21 October 2025
Ninni Perko
Inspiration
Films: Jean-Pierre Jeunet: Delicatessen, Yorgos Lanthimos: The Favourite, Alfred Hitchcock: Rear Window.
Literature: Juli Zeh: Über Menschen, Ira Levin: Rosemary’s Baby, Eeva Puumala, Karim Maiche and Salome Tuomaala-Özdemir: Naapurusto – tarinoita moniäänisestä lähiöstä, Anu Kantola: Kahdeksan kuplan Suomi, as well as numerous articles and blog posts shared by Pekka Tuominen, and the Facebook group Kerrostalon heippalaput.
The work was developed during residencies at Cirko – Center for New Circus and the Finnish Musicians’ Union’s Villa Vikan, as well as in Barcelona, Northern Italy and at Hietsun Paviljonki.
Special Thanks
Outi Järvinen / Arts Management Helsinki, Hannele Niiranen-Mattsson, Saara Moisio, Emmi Vainio, Jaakko Kaartinen, Inari Pesonen, Tiia Hämäläinen, Anna-Maria Isola, Henna Kaikula and Riikka Hohti. Our families, friends and neighbours of all kinds.
