Baltic Circle International Theatre Festival

The 22nd edition of the international theatre festival Baltic Circle will take place in Helsinki from November 21st to December 6th, 2025. This year’s programme presents an impressive mix of domestic and international premieres, participatory discussions and workshops, alongside nocturnal city walks and ceremonial readings.

→ Get acquainted with the festival schedule, performers, and programme at

The 2025 festival programme spotlights the body as a tool for resistance and self-expression, and asks us to consider how bodily perceptions shape our awareness of change, safety, and communality. This year’s lineup features artists such as Flis Holland, Sara Melleri, Kristina Norman, Bita Razavi, Joy Mariama Smith, and Mallika Taneja among others. The festival culminates in a three-day ceremony at the National Theatre, when the Sámi Truth and Reconciliation Commission unveils its landmark report in a historical reading.

Please note: Ticket prices vary, with some events free of charge. For paid performances, tickets must be purchased at Baltic Circle ticket shop or through partnering ticket vendors. Eventbrite confirmations are not valid as official tickets. Performance venues vary by show – check balticcircle.fi for full details.

Info: "Be careful!" can be a caring instruction, a suggestion, or even an order – depending on who gives it. Whatever it is, being careful and staying cautious are an everyday lived experience for women. Be Careful is an incisive satire that challenges the warped status quo and the notion of safety. The work is rooted in rage about violence women suffer. It addresses the all-too-familiar trope that by simply dressing in a certain way women can avoid becoming victims of crime. Mallika Taneja exposes the contradictions of India’s stagnated social progress. Although rooted in a particular context, Be Careful resonates with audiences all over the world, pointing towards the global epidemic of victim blaming and violence against women.

Info: Set around a sculptural installation, Lemmings - A Rehearsal for a Revolution explores everyday strategies of resistance, focusing on the human body as a tool to challenge systems of oppression and structures of power.

When the human body is under constant surveillance and regulation, it becomes a site of oppression. Inevitably, small choices around one’s clothing, public appearance, or bodily gestures can become revolutionary acts of rebellion and the body assumes a central role in resistance and political efforts.

Inspired by the ongoing, female-led “Women, Life, Freedom” revolution in Iran, as well as other global echoes of bodily resistance, Lemmings draws from both the raw physicality of public demonstrations, and the symbolic gestures of everyday defiance.

Info: "Be careful!" can be a caring instruction, a suggestion, or even an order – depending on who gives it. Whatever it is, being careful and staying cautious are an everyday lived experience for women. Be Careful is an incisive satire that challenges the warped status quo and the notion of safety. The work is rooted in rage about violence women suffer. It addresses the all-too-familiar trope that by simply dressing in a certain way women can avoid becoming victims of crime. Mallika Taneja exposes the contradictions of India’s stagnated social progress. Although rooted in a particular context, Be Careful resonates with audiences all over the world, pointing towards the global epidemic of victim blaming and violence against women.

Info: Set around a sculptural installation, Lemmings - A Rehearsal for a Revolution explores everyday strategies of resistance, focusing on the human body as a tool to challenge systems of oppression and structures of power.

When the human body is under constant surveillance and regulation, it becomes a site of oppression. Inevitably, small choices around one’s clothing, public appearance, or bodily gestures can become revolutionary acts of rebellion and the body assumes a central role in resistance and political efforts.

Inspired by the ongoing, female-led “Women, Life, Freedom” revolution in Iran, as well as other global echoes of bodily resistance, Lemmings draws from both the raw physicality of public demonstrations, and the symbolic gestures of everyday defiance.

Info: Set around a sculptural installation, Lemmings - A Rehearsal for a Revolution explores everyday strategies of resistance, focusing on the human body as a tool to challenge systems of oppression and structures of power.

When the human body is under constant surveillance and regulation, it becomes a site of oppression. Inevitably, small choices around one’s clothing, public appearance, or bodily gestures can become revolutionary acts of rebellion and the body assumes a central role in resistance and political efforts.

Inspired by the ongoing, female-led “Women, Life, Freedom” revolution in Iran, as well as other global echoes of bodily resistance, Lemmings draws from both the raw physicality of public demonstrations, and the symbolic gestures of everyday defiance.

Info: Women Walk at Midnight is a global practice of women walking, together, at night on the streets of their cities. The practice started in Delhi in 2016 and has since travelled to many parts of the world. On November 22nd, as part of the Baltic Circle 2025 program, Mallika Taneja wishes to invite Helsinkians to join her on one of such walks.

Info: An evening of two new performative works by artists Flis Holland and Joy Mariama Smith that stretch the limits of communication, access, and perception. Together, the performances invite questions of connection, collectivity, and liberation – whether through an interstellar signal or the refusal of dominant sensory hierarchies.

Info: The Dew Point is a documentary performance exploring the ambiguous value of security in times of (perpetual) war.

At the heart of the project lies artist Kristina Norman’s personal process of renovating a Soviet-era sauna in the Estonian countryside with her father, who was a conscript in the Soviet army in 1977/78.

Combining video documentation of the construction process with a retelling of her father’s stories through a live performer, the performance opens up the liminal experience in the Baltic region – both mental and physical – in which the dew point marks a potential moment of poetic transformation.

Info: The Dew Point is a documentary performance exploring the ambiguous value of security in times of (perpetual) war.

At the heart of the project lies artist Kristina Norman’s personal process of renovating a Soviet-era sauna in the Estonian countryside with her father, who was a conscript in the Soviet army in 1977/78.

Combining video documentation of the construction process with a retelling of her father’s stories through a live performer, the performance opens up the liminal experience in the Baltic region – both mental and physical – in which the dew point marks a potential moment of poetic transformation.

Info: The Greatest Performance of My Life is a durational, alternative cabaret show where performers improvise solos to songs of their own choosing. Unrehearsed and unpredictable, the show shifts between joy, sorrow, fantasy and confession. At its core lies a single show number: a motif that Sara Melleri has developed and transformed as a creative tool throughout the past decade of her performance practice.

Led and hosted by Melleri herself, the work assembles a remarkable constellation of contemporary performers. Hailing from a diverse set of professional backgrounds and practices, the performing artists come together to play around for their own pleasure and enjoyment, offering love and support to one another and to their own expression. Every moment remains charged with the risk, and the potential, of the unknown. Every moment is a gift to the audience.

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