From the very start the dancers of the Finnish National Ballet have been an international community independent of country borders and language barriers.
Ballet 100
Over the decades, the Finnish National Ballet has always aimed to bring ballet closer to the people, beyond the walls of the Opera House. To prompt new audiences to discover the genre, productions have been created specifically for children, and school classes have been invited to watch dress rehearsals.
Many dancers of the Finnish National Ballet grew into choreographers over the years, continuing their careers as either choreographers for their own dance company, the Finnish National Ballet, or abroad. The first time this happened was before the wars at the turn of the 1940s. Saxelin and Sylvestersson promoted
From the start of the new millennium, the Finnish National Ballet was headed by Nordic directors for more than 20 consecutive years. The ballet finally gained equal status with the opera.
In the 2000s, the Finnish National Ballet has been seeking novel solutions for young dancers to find work. In 2008, the Finnish National Ballet took 11 young dancers into apprenticeship training. Six years later in 2014, the Youth Company was established.
Ballet as a visual form of art has always fascinated film and television producers. The first full-length ballet to be made into a film in Finland was Irja Koskinen’s choreography of Pessi and Illusia to Ahti Sonninen’s music in 1954.
At the beginning of 2020, life was carrying on as usual at the ballet and the rest of society. At the same time, the news told of a new coronavirus that had originated in Wuhan in China, with fears of it spreading around the world. It wasn’t long until the first cases were found in Europe.