Finnish festival at KONTRÄR runs 21–23 November 2025. The festival highlights some of Finland’s most interesting artists right now – and makes Östgötagatan vibrate with karaoke, disco tanssi and contemporary performing arts.

Prima Materia is a mystical book written to be performed by a bard. The bard travels around the world citing otherworldly messages that were channeled through the bard’s voice, a caved throat transformed into a shifty horn. This is sort of a magic show – a tender look into a powerful undercurrent that operates reality from behind. It asks of us: when’s the last time you were overwhelmed by two big ideas at once? Purple curtains, hung by organized crime, move in the warming winds, backlit by moonlighting.

Niko Hallikainen is a performance poet and novelist born and based in Helsinki. His performance work has been presented in the Performa Biennial in New York, Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art, Black Box Teater in Oslo and Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma in Helsinki.

The performance will be in English.

The festival is created in collaboration with UusiTeatteri with the support of Teater Info Finland – TINFO and the Culture Fund for Sweden and Finland.