Samovar Circles – a think tank for the future
Samovar Circles is a think tank focusing on how to tackle the new challenges and opportunities for the circus arts in a world in change. Artists, producers and presenters in the Nordic and Baltic contemporary circus and performing arts scene are invited to a series of intimate and participative meetings, workshops and seminars. In 2025-26, the think tank will focus on circus in public spaces and local communities.
Samovar Circles aims to be a collective catalyst and boiler of ideas from which inspiration can ripple into new working models for tomorrow. The network is initiated with the objective to support artists and presenters across the field to keep going, strengthen relationships and find out together how to build new support structures for the future.
How to participate in Samovar Circles?
Samovar Circles takes place both online and live. There are two different ways to take part:
Open to all
Artists, presenters and funders from the Nordic and Baltic regions are offered a series of seminars on the theme of circus in public spaces and local communities in 2025-26.
For network members participants
A core group of 22 artists, producers and presenters meet in workshop residencies to boil and refine ideas.
Partners and members
Samovar Circles is initiated and organised by Subtopia (Sweden), Dance and Circus sInfo Finland (Finland), Teatronas (Lithuania) and New Theatre Institute of Latvia (Latvia), with the support of Nordic Culture Point, Swedish Arts Council and The Nordic Culture Fund. They collaborated for the first time in the context of Subcase Cyber in 2021, then discovering their differences being profoundly valuable. The encounters offered vital inspiration and provocation in a time when covid was stripping them of live interaction with Nordic and Baltic peers, artists and audiences. Based on their joint engagement in what the new reality will look like for contemporary performing arts in the region, they wish to deepen the conversations in a collective engagement with the field.
Today Samovar Circles is a network of 22 Nordic and Baltic artists, producers and presenters. They represent different missions, contexts, knowledge and practices:
Alise Bokaldere (artist, Latvia)
Angela Wand (artist, Sweden)
Bek Berger (artistic director Homo Novus Festival, Latvia)
Gildas Aleksa (artistic director Cirkuliacija, Lithuania)
Jason Dupree (artist, Latvia)
Jens Frimann Hansen (artistic director Passage festival, Denmark)
Karin Skierus (administrator Västra Götaland fundings, Sweden)
Karoline Aamås (artist, Norway)
Kestas Matusevicius (artist, Lithuania)
Kiki Muukkonen (artistic director Subtopia, Sweden)
Lena Kjellander Stockhaus (producer Cirkus Cirkör, Sweden)
Lotta Nevalainen (head of international development, Circus & Dance Info Finland)
Marija Baranauskaite (artist, Lithuania)
Marika Cernavksa (artist, Latvia)
Minna Vainikainen (artist, Finland)
Miradonna Sirkka (artist, Finland)
Olle Strandberg (artist/artistic director The Sphere/A Radar Styled Novel, Sweden)
Pirjo Yli-Manula (artist/artistic director Flow Productions, Finland)
Sarah Garde (producer Copenhagen Circus Arts Festival, Denmark)
Sara Ellström (producer Stora Teatern Göteborg, Sweden)
Stefan Lidström (producer Umeå Teaterförening, Sweden)
