Routa Company’s contemporary dance residency program
The basics:
A dance artist or artist group living elsewhere is invited to work with their own creation, artistic idea, or practice development to Kajaani. The duration of the residency varies from 1 to 4 weeks. The residency doesn’t cost anything to the artist, but Routa is unable to pay any travel compensation, per-diems or working fees for the artists.
The call for residency is on-going and open for all professional dance artists. We also take into consideration the students of dance and choreography, who are on their final year before graduation.
When you feel you have a proposition for your residency, please send it to: sari@routacompany.fi
At the moment, we are accepting residency applications for the year 2026 and onwards.
The proposition should include:
– outline for a working plan, concentrating on the artistic content and ideas. Max. 1 page.
– artists’ curriculum vitae
– link to a video clip, if possible. It can be from another project, that you feel suits your current situation.
– Please also tell if you have preferred dates you’d like to work here.
Artists are offered a place to stay in Routa’s apartment and the studio / stage to work in. The artists are offered professional mentoring in artistic work and / or in the producing of their work, by Routa’s artistic director and managing director. The main criteria of the choices is the same as the criteria of Routa’s other artistic programming: the artistic content of the proposition.
Routa Company’s residential accommodation is a two bedroom apartment in the center of Kajaani, just few blocks away from the studio / stage. The appartment is suitable for appr. 3 persons. Since there is space and bedding available, the place can hold temporarily more people than that. The number of people staying at the house at any given time will be kept reasonable.
The workspace, studio / stage is Routa Company’s home stage at Seminaarin Taidekampus, close to the appartment. Working in the studio mainly happens at daytime (Monday to Friday, between 8 – 16 a’clock), since there are also other users to the space.
The working can happen at the artist’s own pace and terms, after the walk-through of the space. The artistic and productional staff of Routa Company work in the same building, and are available for discussion etc. In all the work that happens in Routa Company, the principles of safe space are applied.
If it suits the needs of the artists, they have a possibility of presenting a demonstration, in the way they choose. This is dependent of the artists, and whether they want to show something or not will not affect the selecting for the residencies. Routa Company will always plan the presentation of the work of the residency artist in collaboration with them. Also the need for artistic and/or productional mentoring will be talked about beforehand and planned and scheduled together with the artists.
The city of Kajaani with its encompassing nature works as a source of inspiration, and possibly also, as an outside working environment for the artist, if they wish so. The small city is culturally very active, and a peaceful place to work and live.