& Espoo Theatre is the International Theatre of Finland. Together with you, we create space for a more diverse, surprising, and active society—please share your energy with us. Good things will surely happen.

With its festival-style repertoire and a legacy spanning over 30 years, & Espoo Theatre stands out from a typical institutional theatre. The theatre offers an exploration of all forms of performing arts, featuring not only our original works and partnerships, but also showcasing the finest guest performances from both Finland and the international stage.

& Espoo Theatre is a theatre, but it is also much more. The purpose is to work as a melting pot for people and ideas—bringing energies together to make society better. The ensemble and existence are ever-changing: without you and our colleagues from all over the world, we would not breathe or grow. When you join us, who knows what will happen! Let’s defy predictability together!

“A. Blomqvist is one of the most listened to and followed artist in today’s Classical Music” Miika Kristian Aleksander Blomqvist, known as A. Blomqvist, stands as Finland’s second most prominent classical artist, numerically following in the footsteps of the world-renowned Jean Sibelius. A. Blomqvist’s distinctive playing style and ability to craft remarkable melodies have garnered global attention, accumulating over 80 million streams worldwide. In 2022, he launched his classical record label, “Nordic Euphony Records,” in collaboration with The Orchard distribution. Over the past year, A. Blomqvist has collaborated closely with The Orchard, a division of Sony Music Entertainment.

The highly praised Finnish composer has attracted a substantial following, gaining over 150,000 new instagram followers in the last 12 months, with an additional 10,000 followers on TikTok. This achievement solidifies A. Blomqvist as one of today’s most listened-to and followed classical artists in the music industry.

Aavistus Festival is a biennial of audiovisual art and VJ culture in Helsinki since 2020. The 4th edition, themed “Attention, please!”, takes place in various venues on October 1–4, 2026.

Aavistus has joined forces with ODDfest to bring unique VJs to the festival.

Having failed to become an international jewel thief, Alf Rehn currently suffers a professorship of innovation, design, and management at the University of Southern Denmark.

Anttu Koistinen is one of Finland’s leading AI experts, combining deep technological expertise with over 20 years of entrepreneurial experience. As the founder and CEO of CasvuGen Ltd, his mission is to make the professional use of AI accessible to anyone.

Koistinen is a central figure in Finland’s AI landscape. He serves as a trainer for the country’s top training companies, including Metropolia, Professio, and Tieturi, and is the lead trainer of the popular AI Master programme at the Management Institute of Finland. He also holds the position of Vice Chairman of AaltoAI, the artificial intelligence community at Aalto University.

With over 300 AI training sessions delivered and thousands of knowledge workers coached, Koistinen is known for his practical and energising style, and his ability to make AI feel approachable and actionable for anyone.

“If you’re looking for safe, I’m not your guy. If you’re looking for change, I just might be.”

A disruptor and educator with a liking for Batman suits, Claus Raasted serves as Director of the College of Extraordinary Experiences, and is the International Dean at Bhavan’s College MSEED Management School of Events, Entertainment, and Design. When not at the office, he travels the globe as a keynote speaker, and is the author of 47 books, the latest of which has the title “UTOPIA LEADERSHIP: Six principles for leading with power”. Raasted also has a past in reality TV, but these days, who hasn’t?

Connection Interrupted is a fresh electronic music act consisting of two cosmic adventurers. Their soundscape is driven by synthesizers, combined with industrial-inspired, aggressively pounding beats, cinematic ambient textures, dreamlike nostalgia, retro video game aesthetics, and striking visual elements.

Their stage design—built from recycled materials—along with programmed lights, song-specific visuals, and MIDI controllers integrated into the set pieces are all created by the duo themselves.

The result is an intense, visually unique, and immersive experience that feels like a story unfolding.

What sets the performance apart within Finland’s music scene is its DIY nature: a self-produced, independently funded spectacle that feels all the more soulful because of it. It’s like a journey through space, moving between dreams and nightmares, while keeping you dancing.

DanceWorks Helsinki is a fresh initiative in the Finnish dance field, established in 2024. Its mission is to strengthen the visibility and impact of dance art in Finland.

The organisation works to expand the audience base for dance by producing artistically high-quality, professional works not only within traditional dance institutions and stages, but also beyond them. It also seeks to spark critical discussion around the development of operating environments, education, and leadership practices within the dance sector, while encouraging people of all ages and backgrounds to engage with dance; both as participants and as audiences.

For ODDfest, DanceWorks Helsinki is bringing DanceWorlds. An event that brings peculiar moving and dancing creatures to life, embodying dreams, hopes, secrets, and desires, and igniting your imagination. You can let the creatures move you, touch you, maybe tell a story to you, or share a secret… or maybe you can share your dream, secret, or wish with one of them? Towards the end of this event, the creatures will gravitate towards the center of the main hall and transform into dancers of various styles. You are invited to join this party!

Dr. Psykerö & Mikko host a safely chaotic dancefloor ritual where bingo meets disco, eurodance, and beloved Finnish classics. With infectious energy, surprise prizes, and an epic finale, they turn your evening into a tasteless but tasty adventure!

DocPoint is Finland’s leading documentary film festival and a key platform for non-fiction cinema in the Nordics. Held annually in Helsinki, the festival showcases critically acclaimed international documentaries alongside Finnish premieres. DocPoint is widely recognized for fostering dialogue around social, political, and cultural issues through film.

Electric Elisa continues to enchant curious explorers of life with their music and energy. Helsinki-based Electric Elisa is an electronic (dance) music exploration field. Different genres blend with catchy earworms and euphoric, symphonic elements. Playful and thoughtful, the songs touch on themes of self-knowledge, the human psyche and the universe’s mysteries.

Live, this unique world unfolds through the trio’s sweaty rock-show energy. Raw and whimsical improvisation forms a passionate foundation in the band’s live electronic performance.

Electric Elisa’s debut album Fokus Lazer Sharp was released in early 2026 via Alakulttuuritalo.

Dr. Elisabet Lahti is a Finnish educator and researcher exploring what inner strength and leadership look like when grounded in the body, creativity, and our interdependence with nature and one another. Her work sits at the intersection of culture, community, and individual experience, with a focus on life-giving expressions of power in times of transformation.

Lahti is widely known for her work on sisu, the Finnish concept of deep fortitude. Her PhD research at Aalto University brought this age-old idea into contemporary conversations around leadership, resilience, and everyday life, drawing from applied psychology, somatic practices, systems thinking, and lived experience.

As part of her research journey, Lahti ran and cycled 2,400 kilometres across New Zealand to study how inner strength is accessed and sustained. Through talks, gatherings, and books such as Gentle Power and Sisun alkemia, she invites people to see strength as relational, creative, and shared.

Emmi Kärnä is a Finnish game designer and creative technologist whose work spans interactive media, emerging technologies, and participatory experiences all the way from escape rooms to digital puzzles. Her practice blends playful design, digital storytelling, and human-centred interaction, making complex systems intuitive and engaging.

Kärnä has worked with institutions, cultural organisations, and research groups to explore how games and interactive formats can enrich education, civic engagement, and creative expression. With her focus on collaboration and experimentation, Kärnä brings a future-facing perspective on how interactive media shapes human behaviour, community building, and cultural meaning in the digital age.

Eve’s always around for the dance and the sound…

For a decade, Eve has been exploring alternative arts, cultures, and events around the world—smoothly shifting her perspectives from a creative producer to an immersed observer and a performing artist.

Inspired by the dancefloors, she’s been mixing music since 2024, with her public sets counting up to ten, in Finland and in Germany.

Eve has a clear and flowy intuitive audio vision, from which her distinct soundscapes are created and curiously curated for different spaces. Her bliss is in aesthetic cinematic sounds, wide and deep bass, nature-infused elements, and sparkling melodies—playing it soft and sweet, always unique.

Fanny Heinonen is the Director of the Film Tampere development program at Business Tampere, where she works to grow, internationalize, and future-proof the regional audiovisual industry. With a background spanning film production, casting, entrepreneurship, and business development, Fanny brings a rare inside-out understanding of how creative industries operate, from set floors to strategy rooms.

A creative leader with a passion for art, fashion, and design, her work lives at the intersection of business, creativity, and human performance. Alongside her role at Business Tampere, she coaches creative professionals and emerging leaders, helping them navigate sustainable careers in fast-moving industries.

Filip Hiltmann began his career in music journalism and has since gone on to hold positions at Export Music Sweden and Sony Music Publishing.

Today, he leads marketing and press for Sweden’s Way Out West, one of Europe’s most acclaimed and innovative music festivals, while also driving the marketing for Way Out West’s parent company, promoter Luger.

Folded Visuals takes the viewer to a secret garden after dark. Visions of lakes, ferns, and soft moss blend into mysterious signals and a splash of circuit. Whispers and faraway wanders, restless dreams of a long lost drone.

A prominent VJ in the Helsinki club and underground scene since 2013, she has performed at festivals and events from Greenland to Kazakhstan.

At ODDfest, Folded Visuals will be performing a special show with VIRTA. This performance is brought to the stage in collaboration with Aavistus.

Domingæ is a Chilean musician and filmmaker living in Mexico City; she founded her band Föllakzoid in 2007 and since then she has been touring and putting out some of the most mind bending music out in the renown sacred bones records labels.

Heavily informed by the heritage of the ancient music of the Andes, the band has learned to integrate their origins with contemporary sounds and technologies of our times, creating a rich yet minimal electronic-organic atmosphere.

Föllakzoid grows via depuration, aiming with each record to fill longer spaces of time with fewer and fewer elements. The creative perspective of the band has always been about unlearning the narrative and musical knowledge that shape the physical and digital formats and conceptions available, both visually and musically in order to make a time-space metric structure that dissolves both the author and the narrative paradigms. “I found my sonic and metric identity even more in these songs than in our previous attempts,” guitarist and singer Domingæ Garcia-Huidobro explains.

Galit Ariel is a techno-futurist, author, and creative who explores emerging technologies’ wild and imaginative side and their impact on our culture, behaviours, and interactions. Through her experimental media art practice, she aspires to poke at our experience with(in) familiar worlds in new ways. Ariel’s immersive and digital art applies critical perspectives that evoke novel techno-social paradigms related to culture, technology, and humans ‘being’ in the world. Ariel’s research-creation PhD at York University (Toronto), explores emerging paradigms of embodiment and presence within immersive spaces, and the fluid intersection between embodied technologies and imagination.

Ariel has been featured as one of ‘Nine Women that are building the Metaverse’ by Unity, one of 40 influential futurists by Forbes (2022), and one of 100 best tech speakers by Women in Tech (2023). She is a sought-after keynote speaker who appeared at notable international conferences, agencies, and institutions, such as TED, Bell Labs, SXSW, The European Union, The City of Sydney, Microsoft, The Next Web, Slush Tokyo, PauseFest, Women in Tech Global Summit, and many more.

Heidi Backman serves as the Permanent Secretary at Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture, placing her at the center of national cultural and educational policy. Her work shapes how arts, culture, and creative industries are supported at a structural level. Backman is recognized for her long-standing expertise in public administration and cultural governance. She plays a key role in defining the conditions under which creativity and culture operate in Finnish society.

Few creatives have shaped Finland’s recent pop-cultural imagery as decisively as Heikki Slåen. Known for creating striking visual worlds that resonate with audiences, he has played a central role in redefining Finnish music videos through his long-standing work with UMK, helping transform the competition into a local and global phenomenon. His directorial work reached international audiences through Käärijä’s Cha Cha Cha, quickly followed by Windows95man’s No Rules and Erika Vikman’s Ich Komme, where image, music, and identity merged into unforgettable cultural moments.

Working fluidly as a director, cinematographer, and actor, Slåen has built a versatile portfolio that crafts narrative universes marked by intensity, playfulness, and deep human sensitivity. Alongside his film and television work, Slåen also practices as a solution-focused therapist, bringing empathy, narrative insight, and practical strategy into his sessions to help cultivate trust, enable flow, and make space for both structure and creative freedom.

INDIE SHOWCASE is a Helsinki-born event concept that connects Finland’s indie artists with audiences and music industry professionals, putting rising talent in the spotlight. Rooted in community, the event creates opportunities for meaningful encounters and networking across the industry. Now already taking place across several locations in the capital region, INDIE SHOWCASE continues to captivate audiences and enrich Finland’s music landscape.

INDIE SHOWCASE will host a special edition of its event live at ODDfest.

Jani Halme is a Finnish writer and cultural commentator known for his sharp insights on media, culture, and society. With a background spanning journalism, editorial work, and cultural analysis, Halme’s writing probes power, public discourse, and the invisible forces shaping contemporary life. He has contributed to major Finnish outlets and engaged audiences with thoughtful content and perspectives on how culture intersects with technology, politics, and everyday experience. As a speaker, strategist, and storyteller, Halme brings clarity to complex societal patterns and the narratives that define our times.

Jonas Verwijnen is a record producer, composer, live sound engineer, AI-music product innovator, and music industry consultant whose career spans more than two decades and over 500 credits. Born in Switzerland, raised in Finland, and shaped by 13 years in Berlin, Verwijnen brings a distinctly international perspective to every project he touches.

His work spans indie rock, electronic, experimental, and ambient music, with releases on labels such as 4AD, Sacred Bones, Sub Pop, Jagjaguwar, Bella Union, and Heavenly Recordings. Most recently, he has collaborated with artists including Kamasi Washington, Mereba, Corbin, Colin Stetson, Shida Shahabi, and Valerie June. At the core of his practice is a belief that sound is connection: whether he is sculpting delicate textures or capturing a raw, unrepeatable moment, Verwijnen focuses on uncovering the heartbeat of the music.

Dr. Jukka-Pekka Heikkilä is a Finnish scholar, speaker, and science–art practitioner working at the intersection of research, creativity, and participatory cultures.

Heikkilä is a Senior Scientist at University of Turku and a visiting scholar affiliated with Harvard University and Stanford University. His work explores how people collaborate, self-organize, and create change in experimental communities and organizations. Heikkilä does occasional consulting gigs in CERN and is the founder of the Burning Stories science–art collective, which investigates transformative experiences in global festival cultures through innovative data collection and artistic dissemination.

Heikkilä’s projects combine research, AI, and visual storytelling to translate complex scientific ideas into immersive public experiences and new forms of collective knowledge.

Juska Wendland is a long-standing tastemaker in Finnish electronic music culture, known for his work as a DJ, radio host, music journalist, and podcast researcher.

For over two decades, he has introduced audiences to new sounds and underground movements through clubs, festivals, and broadcasting. Wendland’s influence lies in his ability to contextualize music within broader cultural shifts and bridging scenes, generations, and genres.

In his research, Wendland focuses on audience participation and new interactive methods in podcasting and audio production. Through both scholarship and broadcasting, Wendland shapes new ways of thinking around audio culture, community, and the future of media.

Wendland will be rising to the stage at ODDfest as both a speaker and a performer.

Jussi Venäläinen is an expert in flow state and wise work, the author of the book Flow-tila, and the Founder of Flow Akatemia. Venäläinen believes that now, more than ever, it is time to replace work practices and mindsets rooted in the industrial era with coaching-based self-leadership and smarter ways of working by strengthening the conditions that enable flow.

Venäläinen helps organizations remove unnecessary barriers to flow and supports individuals in becoming masters of their own work through flow training. His personal learning dream is to draw as much insight as possible from flow and refine those lessons into practical tools for others.

Refusing to adhere to any genre conventions, Kaero seamlessly navigates heavy bass frequencies, evocative vocals, and fragmented drum breaks, weaving together high-energy sets of contemporary and deconstructed club sound—always with a spice of c*untiness.

Inspired by her multi-disciplinary practice as a DJ, curator, creative director & designer, she creates immersive, holistic experiences that push the boundaries of club culture, never afraid of questioning the status quo. In Helsinki, she’s the mother of the club concept Alternate Frequency, which seamlessly combines DJ sets with live electronic music, performance art, and visuals.

Karoliina Jarenko is an expert in organisational renewal, a public thinker, and the founder and CEO of Almanovia. She actively contributes to societal and professional conversations on the transformation of work, leadership and learning, particularly in relation to the changing role of humans in an era shaped by technology and AI.

Karoliina founded Almanovia to rethink organisational development by combining structures and ways of working with human experience, using artistic and experiential methods alongside analytical approaches. Her work focuses on a central question: what kinds of conditions enable thinking, learning and shared responsibility in a world where traditional leadership models no longer suffice.

In her leadership development work, Karoliina also uses clowning as a professional tool. Through it, she invites leaders to step out of their roles, face uncertainty and grow their capacity to hold themselves and others in rapidly changing environments. For her, play, confusion and humour are not opposites of serious development, but often its starting point.

Karoliina Korppoo is a game designer, TED speaker, creative leader, and worldbuilder best known as the Lead Designer of Cities: Skylines, the city-building game played by millions worldwide. With a career spanning 20 years, she has built games ranging from narrative mobile experiences to expansive simulation worlds.

Specializing in designing complex systems that feel alive—from cities and economies to player-driven narratives—Korppoo’s work blends creativity with structure, combining artistic vision with player psychology. Her philosophy is that virtual worlds, and being playful within them, can teach us a lot about ourselves and the world around us.

Korppoo also believes digital entertainment is one of the most accessible creative mediums of our time. Games invite people not just to consume stories, but to shape them; to build, experiment, express identity, and explore possibility in safe, interactive spaces. In a world that often feels overwhelming or exclusive, games can lower the threshold for creativity and joy, offering agency, connection, and meaningful play to millions.

Currently, Korppoo operates as the Creative Director of Day Off Interactive, an Ireland-based game development studio focused on creating innovative gaming experiences that build on the legacy of classics.

Paleface is one of Finland’s most influential hip hop artists, widely recognized for his award-winning music and his strong presence in public debate. A rapper, lyricist, and author, he has played a major role in shaping Finnish hip hop while addressing themes of politics, freedom of expression, and cultural identity. Beyond music, Paleface is known as a sharp societal commentator whose voice extends into literature and activism. His work shows how art can function as both cultural expression and political force.

Katriina Heljakka (Doctor of Arts, PhD) is a researcher of toys and play at the University of Turku, as well as an artist, curator, art critic, and designer of playable experiences. Her work explores the visual, material, and digital cultures of play, and the role of play across leisure, working life, and education. She is a Docent of Toy and Play Cultures at Tampere University and currently serves as a visiting scholar at Turku School of Economics, where she is also a Docent in Entrepreneurship.

Before academia, Heljakka worked in the toy industry as a game designer and creative manager, a background that continues to shape her research. Her interests include toy design, toy fandoms, playpreneurship, and lifelong and life-wide play, examining how playfulness functions as both cultural practice and serious creative force.

Lauri Järvilehto is a Finnish musician, writer, philosopher, and a father of five.

Throughout his career in music, Järvilehto has worked as a musician, producer, and composer on more than 70 music projects, including a stint as a theatre musical conductor. Järvilehto has also released eight solo albums, some under pseudonyms Songsworth and Lau.

When not making music or writing, Järvilehto sets his mind to trying to figure out how the world works.

A wide-ranging industry professional, Lotta Savolainen has nearly two decades of experience across the local music landscape. She has worked with both major and independent labels, successfully combining roles as a musician, publicist, agent, mentor, curator, and journalist. Her work is rooted in championing diversity, strengthening ethical practices, and elevating the voices of independent artists.

Today, Savolainen serves as the CEO of Music x Media, Finland’s largest music conference, an afternoon host on Radio Helsinki, and a member of the expert committee for the Teosto Cultural Foundation. She has previously curated her own column, Löytöretkellä, for Soundi magazine, and acted as a judge and curator for platforms such as Emma Gala, Indie Awards, and the artist committee of the Lost In Music showcase festival, where she also served as the artistic director in 2025. Her dedicated work for the field has also been widely recognized as Savolainen was named Indie Co.’s “Indie Friend of the Year” in 2024 and awarded “Media Influencer of the Year” at the 2025 Industry Awards.

Lottaliina Pokkinen (LL.Lic.) is a violinist and an activist lawyer with a passion for copyrights, creativity, and negotiating skills.

Through her company, Lehtinen Legal, she represents leading artists, authors, and other creative professionals in their contract negotiations.

Currently, Lottaliina is also doing her doctoral research about how to best teach negotiating skills to law students.

Matti Pietari Järvinen is a multidisciplinary visual artist working across painting, sculpture, performance, and animation. His work has been exhibited in Finland and internationally in Europe and the United States, including New York Fashion Week 2022, and his pieces are held in private collections worldwide. Järvinen’s visual language blends contemporary folk art and street art into raw, color-saturated characters and emotionally direct imagery.

At ODDfest, Järvinen presents Community artwork: Thousand RÄNDÖM ODDfaces, a guided community artwork made together with festival-goers and passers-by. A total of six meters of plywood will be set up for public painting, and Järvinen will guide the process throughout the day. The purpose is simple but striking: to see how a face changes when it passes from one person’s interpretation to the next. Each participant adds their own instinct, mood, and visual language, turning the “RÄNDÖM ODDfaces” into a layered collective portrait of the festival’s energy and the surrounding city, shaped by both intentional attendance and accidental encounters.

Järvinen lives by his motto: I’m making art—everything else is a waste of time!

Minna Mustapää is a beloved trainer and workshop facilitator focusing on early-stage entrepreneurship, personal development, and meditation. Her immersive meditation journeys are known for being surprisingly powerful, enabling participants to release stress and connect with inner peace—sometimes for the first time ever!

Mustapää is very impact-driven and has always enjoyed supporting fellow entrepreneurs on their journey. She is currently a board member of Helsinki Women Entrepreneurs, helping internationalise the legacy organisation, and a trainer at Helsinki Incubators Pathways program. In addition, she provides custom trainings, workshops, and meditation journeys upon request. Her previous clients include Suomen Yrittäjät, DNA, Lumoa, The Shortcut, Hatch, Echo, and DEI Forum Nordics, among others.

Minna Tervamäki enjoyed a long career as a principal dancer with the Finnish National Ballet and, over the course of three decades, performed nearly all the leading roles in classical ballet as well as works by major contemporary choreographers.

Since 2005, she has also worked as a choreographer. After leaving the National Ballet in 2012, her focus shifted toward interdisciplinary productions in which dance is created in close dialogue with live music. She has collaborated extensively with chamber musicians, opera singers, and composers, and has developed works where dance also intersects with circus arts. A unique collaboration with visual artist Hannaleena Heiska has now continued for over 10 years and continues to evolve into new forms.

Tervamäki’s work spans ballet stages, museums, festivals, and dance film. She also works as a speaker and pedagogue and has developed Minna’s Methods, a movement concept that brings together decades of performance experience and embodied thinking.

She has received, among others, the Philip Morris Dance Flower Award, the Edvard Fazer Award, and the Knight First Class official state decoration from the Order of the Lion of Finland.

Misha is a Finnish music producer-artist known for his numerous collaborations with GRAMMY-winning artists the likes of Lalah Hathaway, Nate Smith, Talib Kweli, and Moonchild’s Amber Navran. Misha moves effortlessly between alternative r&b, hip-hop, future soul, and nu-funk.

Along with over 100 million streams on Spotify, the prolific artist has received support from Okayplayer, Soulection Radio, BBC, and CBC. Misha’s songs have also appeared on Chris Pratt’s movie ‘Mercy’, HBO Max’s South Side, and G.R.I.T.S. TV Series. In 2024, Misha received two nominations at the Finnish Music Awards (Emma Awards) and was selected as a Recording Academy Voting Member.

Misha’s music represents a unique and modern sound hailing from Finland—alternative R&B infused with hip-hop, jazz, and soul, reflecting both Nordic melancholy and global influences.

Mitäs Mitäs Mitäs festival breaks barriers as an unprejudiced celebration of arts. The festival is organized in Nuutajärvi, Finland. A communal celebration of creativity in the natural beauty of Mitäs Land is born out of the versatile programme of multidisciplinary arts full of surprises, the mystical and inspiring setting, and the people’s warm-hearted interactions.

Mitäs Mitäs Mitäs will bring its magic to Tavastia through various decorations and installations. The scenography at Tavastia will combine the unique stage concepts of Club Taikayö and Varjo—blending mystery and light art into an immersive space delightfully unpredictable. For this, Mitäs Mitäs Mitäs joins forces with the creative light art group Flowers of Life.

Muovipussi is an electronic music group that blending different genres. The band members—Milla Lahtinen, Niklas Blomberg, and Heidi Finnberg—founded Muovipussi in 2018. Their music is based on exploring soundscapes, and their live performances are known for unusual and entertaining antics.

Pushing boundaries, Muovipussi draws inspiration from, among other things, knitting grandmothers and the heavy elements of metal music. Combined with fast rap, beautiful melodies, and theatrical performances, these elements are likely to evoke some kind of emotion in every audience member. If the audience is left amazed by what they see, Muovipussi’s vision has been fulfilled.

Nuua Company is a Finnish contemporary circus and visual theatre group founded in 2013. With Its Experimental works, Nuua has redeemed its place in the international performing arts scene. Nuua’s award-winning performances have received notable mentions from critics and books about the contemporary circus, and the performances have been touring in 21 countries.

Expanding the mind through the body

For ODDfest 2026, the Kamppi Chapel—a striking landmark of wooden architecture in downtown Helsinki—transforms into a dream portal where the body and the non-linear mind take centre stage. Over two days, experimental events unfold as an invigorating extension of this summer’s ODD universe. The chapel becomes a deep space satellite, exploring urgent themes ranging from work–life balance, mental health, money and value to planetary limits, AI and feminist futures.

We approach these themes through experimental sessions using movement, streams of consciousness, play and release. We move our bodies, shed the everyday mind, immerse in soundscapes and poetic visions, write and listen, open up, enter other frequencies—yet always returning to the ground.

ODD Deep Space is curated by artist and somatic facilitator Simo Vassinen, with guests ranging from thinkers to movers and makers. Visitors are invited to leave their 9-to-5 minds at the coat check. The space is safe, but brave. No prior movement experience is needed: all sessions are designed to be easy to enter. This is not about performativity, but about openness, curiosity and exploration.

We lean on each other in a shared space to access new ways of thinking. We turn to the poetic, comfortably unclear frequency of the Night to guide us through the Day. We explore how body-based practices and creative formats can deepen our engagement with these themes, and how tools of vitality can expand the social imagination. We shoot to the stars and see what lands.

Oki Tåg, the Founder of entrepreneurial education provider Trainshare, is happy to share what he’s learned over his two entrepreneurial decades: from building self-awareness, overcoming the challenges of learning, figuring out how to carry on after burnout, and accepting emotions, to how these issues reflect in the life of an entrepreneur.

During the past 20 years, Tåg has built and run 12+ incubation and acceleration programs, mentored over 1,500 entrepreneurs, and led 250+ different workshops. He has also been honoured to be part of organizations such as Microsoft Flux, where his team was awarded the first-ever Helsinki Startup Ecosystem Hero Award.

Otto Yliperttula, widely known as YOTTO, is one of Finland’s most internationally recognized electronic music producers. His melodic, atmospheric take on deep house has earned him performances at Coachella, Tomorrowland, Electric Zoo, and festivals across Europe, North America, and Australia.

Yliperttula’s 2018 debut album Hyperfall on Anjunadeep topped Billboard’s Dance/Electronic chart and accumulated over 20 million streams, while his remixes for Coldplay, Gorillaz, Röyksopp, and RÜFÜS DU SOL have reinforced his global presence.

In 2019, he launched his own label Odd One Out to champion not just his own music but the sounds he’s passionate about. Quickly, the label has grown into a carefully curated hub that spotlights both established peers and emerging fresh talents.

Yliperttula will take the stage at ODDfest as a speaker.

A dance floor can tell you everything—if you know how to listen.

P o B learned that lesson from the crowd long before stepping behind the decks. Years spent on dance floors shaped his instinct for the subtle shifts of energy that move through a room. Today, that instinct defines his work as a DJ and selector.

P o B reads the room and lets the time unfold. His selections move through tension, surprise, and moments of melancholic euphoria—the kind that pull dancers inward before releasing them back into the collective rhythm. Unexpected turns are part of the language.

Most of his time is spent digging. Hours each day searching for both new releases and hidden gems. His sound drifts between indie dance, minimal, deep tech, progressive, deep house, and techno, guided more by feeling than genre.

Pascal Fischer is a DJ and the founder of Frankfurt-based smile. Festival. Driven by the belief that “the world is a playground, and he’s willing to play his part in it,” he creates spaces for connection through euphoric house music—whether behind the decks or through a festival built by friends, for friends. On dancefloors that feel like home, his work centers on shared energy, joy, and human connection.

Pelkkää Hyvää Experience, who released its debut EP in December 2025, brings uncompromising energy, finely polished musicianship, and a socially conscious message to the stage.

The experience includes stories from frontman Messy Micc’s youth in the outskirts of Eastern Vantaa, powerful statements, and simply an insanely high energy and good vibes—driven by Finnish rap and big band tradition.

Perttu Pölönen is a futurist, inventor, and author. He has studied future technologies at Singularity University, based at NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, co-founded an edtech company in Myanmar, and won EU’s biggest science competition for youth with his patented MusiClock invention.

In 2018, MIT Tech Review honored him among the 35 Innovators Under 35 in Europe. Pölönen has also written three books and given over 1,200 keynotes in more than 20 countries surrounding the topic of future.

One of Finland’s most internationally recognized entrepreneurs, Peter Vesterbacka is best known for helping scale Angry Birds into a global phenomenon and for co-founding Slush, now one of the world’s leading startup events. Over his career, he has become recognized for bold thinking around growth, branding, and global ambition. Vesterbacka has worked across technology, media, and education, consistently pushing ideas that challenge conventional limits. His perspective combines startup culture, cultural momentum, and a belief in thinking bigger, beyond markets or borders.

Q-teatteri is a Helsinki-based theatre company founded by a group of freelance actors in 1990. Since then, it has become a household name in the Finnish theatre scene.

The mission is to be a safe haven for contemporary theatre—constantly pushing the boundaries of modern drama. Q-teatteri strives to create performances that would be impossible to create anywhere else. The theatre stages only one production at a time, allowing for room to be as artistically and technically ambitious as possible.

Reetta Koski is a Finnish painter, art educator and wilderness guide based in Hämeenkyrö, Finland. She works primarily with oil paint and charcoal, approaching painting intuitively and allowing the process itself to guide the image.

Koski’s work often portrays animals of the Finnish forest as well as human portraits. A recurring theme in her paintings is the gaze—the moment of presence that emerges when the viewer meets the subject eye to eye. Her paintings aim to capture that quiet tension of being seen and seeing.

Alongside her studio work, Koski develops participatory art experiences through workshops, art camps, and retreats. She believes that every human being is born an artist and that art is not only a skill but a state of mind: a source of strength and expression available to everyone.

Her work is driven by a constant search for new ways to bring people closer to creativity and to the intuitive power of making art.

Reidar Wasenius brings together science, business, and creativity in a rare combination. As an AI researcher, his current work focuses on memetic AI, often described as the next paradigm beyond generative AI. Alongside research, he has been deeply embedded in the startup ecosystem from its earliest days, serving as an advisor, board member, and coach to founders across incubators and accelerators. Wasenius has led the Helsinki chapter of the Founder Institute and served as Managing Director of FiBAN, the Finnish Business Angels Network.

His tech career spans over three decades, with roles at Nokia, Samsung, Telecom Finland, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), and Tekes (now Business Finland). Actively involved in every major tech wave since the 1980s, from microcomputers to AI, his interdisciplinary thinking is also reflected in Personal Brainer, co-authored with neurobiologist Tiina Huttu.

Salomé Daoudi is the Head of Agency & Partnerships at NusNus, a Copenhagen-based creative agency behind several major electronic music and cultural events, the likes of Distortion, Karrusel, and Kaleido. Both an event and idea agency, NusNus invents, produces, consults, promotes, and executes a wide range of gatherings, both public and private.

In her role, working with clients across diverse fields, Daoudi operates at the intersection of disciplines, industries, and artistic formats, with an aim to bring creative value to every commissioned project while involving creatives and artists.

Leading one of Finland’s most influential architecture firms, Samppa Lappalainen is best known through JKMM Architects, the studio behind cultural landmarks such as Amos Rex. In this role, Lappalainen plays a key part in creating meaningful, high-quality architecture that shapes better urban environments, placing design at the center of socially relevant public life.

Since founding his own studio in 2005, Lappalainen has worked across a broad spectrum of projects; from private homes and historic renewals to cultural hubs and sustainable urban developments. His work also includes leading innovative public service concepts and pioneering floating architecture projects.

Also known to many as the host of Grand Designs Finland, highlighting ambitious and inspiring home-building projects, Lappalainen promotes a culture of collaboration, trust, and empowerment, believing that architecture can actively drive sustainable societal progress.

Sarah Julia’s music is an exercise in tenderness, bound by sisterhood and defined by a haunting, piercing vulnerability. Their introspective indie folk is shaped by a shared childhood, carried through pure, intertwined vocals that explore love, heartache, and family.

From a young age, they bonded over music—trading artists like Bon Iver and Ben Howard alongside Cat Stevens and Jim Croce—before eventually turning to songwriting together during a significant change in their family, seeking shared catharsis.

This led to their debut EP How Do We Go Back To Being Normal? (2024), a snapshot of a time marked by grief and change, which quickly garnered a cult following. Their second EP, Only Making It Worse (2025), builds on this foundation, blending a slightly poppier sound with the same emotional depth, transforming frustration and pain into songs that offer both despair and comfort.

Simo Routarinne is an internationally recognized applied improvisation coach, interaction designer, and expert in status expression and power communication. With decades of experience working across cultures and disciplines, he helps people become more aware, playful, and powerful in their interactions. Routarinne is known for his warm presence, sharp insight, and disarming humor. His workshops blend improvisation, psychology, and embodied awareness to explore how status dynamics shape connection, collaboration, and creativity.

Participants value his ability to create a safe yet challenging space where deep learning meets joyful experimentation. At ODDference, Simo invites you to discover how subtle shifts in behavior can transform relationships, unlock authenticity, and bring more awareness and choice in behaviour.

Simo Vassinen (FI/DE) is a dancer, facilitator and researcher exploring how we can expand thinking through the body. His current work synthesises his background in futures research, journalism, translation, business studies, event production, contemporary dance, choreography and bodywork, always placing the body at the core. He seeks to puncture the everyday with collective vitality, to allow the Night to inform the Day, and to release norms in order to better face multi-level questions within our communities and desired futures.

He looks for connections that transcend the linear mind through movement, performance, touch, rave culture, psychoanalysis, dynamic meditation, mental health, and societal questions, drawing strength from the queer underground. These explorations take form in workshops, performances, and interventions, ranging from underground contexts to institutional settings.

Vassinen offers his body-forward concepts widely in Berlin and Central Europe (Sophiensaele, ImPulsTanz, Uferstudios, Radialsystem, Social Pleasure Center / Fortuna, Stretch Festival, Ponderosa), Helsinki (Kiasma, R4, Solstice Festival, Aalto University, Ateneum x UrbanApa, Zodiak, Demos Helsinki, Sweet Spot), and across the Nordics (The Borderland, Goethe-Institut Denmark).

Opened in 2022, Tanssin talo is Finland’s first dedicated house for dance, serving as a major new cultural institution in Helsinki. The venue hosts leading Finnish and international dance productions, residencies, and festivals, strengthening the visibility and infrastructure of contemporary dance nationwide.

Tero Vanhanen is a keynote speaker and architect who challenges the real estate and construction industry with outside-the-box thinking, backed by hands-on, insider-level execution.

Vanhanen is an architect with senior development leadership experience across the industry’s front line, including roles as Chief Creative Officer at VVO (Kojamo), Hartela, and Neapo. Since 2016, he has worked at Fira as its Phenomenon Creator, spearheading vision and growth, marking a decade of hands-on impact.

Vanhanen’s sessions are visual, witty, and highly actionable—the kind that break silos today and improve outcomes tomorrow. Industry leaders have described him as “one of the visionaries in the field,” underscoring a reputation built on results and a strong command of both design and delivery.

Tunna Milonoff is a Finnish storyteller, creator, and cultural architect working at the intersection of media, participation, and collective transformation.

For over two decades, he has pioneered media concepts that don’t just tell stories but ignite movements.

Milonoff is best known as the creator of the groundbreaking television series Madventures and Docventures. More than media formats, they became cultural interventions that shifted audiences from spectators to participants—transforming ideas into collective action and communities into movements.

His most recent book, Liekki (Johnny Kniga, 2025), became a significant contribution to the conversation on burnout, identity, and the importance of human connection in a hyper-individualistic age.

In his keynotes, Milonoff helps organizations navigate accelerating change—turning burnout-inducing chaos into meaningful evolution and fragmentation into clear direction through systems thinking, structural clarity, deep human connection, and collective participation.

Right now, Milonoff is exploring the tension between passion and ambition in creative business: when passion leads, work becomes a way for life to express itself—and flourishing follows.

As Chief ODDness Manager of ODDfest, Ukko-Pekka Itäpelto operates at the intersection of creative culture and business, translating between two worlds that too often talk past each other. His work focuses on nurturing “ODDness” in dual form: supporting artists, cultural workers, and other creative professionals in finding sustainable opportunities within the business landscape, while helping organizations and companies understand the value of creative processes, experimental thinking, and alternative ways of working.

With a long background in events, cultural production, club culture and community-driven initiatives, he brings a curator’s eye and a builder’s mindset to ODDfest. Together with artist-curators, he is responsible for shaping the festival’s overall content and direction. He views ODDfest as a kind of club laboratory (in Finnish, klubitorio)—an experimental space where new and exciting ideas are tested, combined, and refined into inspiring constellations that can generate fresh content and long-term value in a sustainable way.

Known for her distinctive voice and singing style, “Valerie June’s every quiver bespeaks emotional honesty” (New Yorker). As a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter and three-time Americana Music Honors and Awards nominee, June weaves fresh medicinal downloads of love, sweetness, goodness, and joy with songs that have flowed through her for years.

An author, poet, certified yoga and mindfulness meditation instructor, June honorably served as a Turnaround artist working with students for the President’s Committee for the Arts and Humanities and continues serving through The Kennedy Center. She has recorded three best-selling solo albums and written songs for legendary artists such as Mavis Staples and The Blind Boys of Alabama. She has been praised by Bob Dylan and shared the stage with myriad artists including John Prine, Norah Jones, Tyler Childers, Dinosaur Jr., Booker T. Jones, M. Ward, Robert Plant, Meshell Ndegeocello, Avett Brothers, Dave Matthews, Angelique Kidjo, Willie Nelson, Brandi Carlile, and Elvis Costello.

Her albums have been featured by numerous publications such as Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, The Washington Post, NPR Music, Vogue, Elle, Mojo, Uncut, and many others, and she’s made television appearances on The Tonight Show, CBS Saturday Morning, PBS, Austin City Limits, BBC, and many more. June splits her time between Tennessee and New York when she’s not touring.

“Valerie June has built a devoted following by ignoring expectations. She is simultaneously rural and cosmopolitan, historically minded and contemporary, idiosyncratic and fashionable, mystical and down-to-earth.” —New York Times

A prominent voice in Finnish media, Ville Blåfield is widely known for his work as a long-time journalist shaping public debate around culture, politics, and society. His career includes senior editorial roles at Helsingin Sanomat and Radio Helsinki, and journalistic work for Suomen Kuvalehti and other major Finnish publications. Blåfield is also the Program Director of the Helsinki Book Fair, one of Finland’s largest literature gatherings. As a communications consultant and advisor, he brings deep insight into media, public conversation, and cultural contexts.

VIRTA, formed by Erik Fräki, Antti Hevosmaa, and Heikki Selamo, is known for its immersive live performances and distinctive sonic palette, which is difficult to confine to a single genre. The band’s unique way of blending ambient electronic music with Nordic jazz tradition, post-rock, and psychedelia is truly one of a kind.

In recent years, VIRTA has undergone a metamorphosis, the results of which are reflected in their album Horros (Svart Records), released at the end of 2023. Founded in Kuopio in 2011 and later relocated to Helsinki, the trio has expanded its sonic palette with new instruments and Finnish-language vocals. With their latest album, the band continues its musical exploration deeper into shadowy, liminal territories.

The band’s earlier releases, Hurmos (Svart Records, 2016) and Tales From the Deep Waters (Tourist Information, 2012), received widespread acclaim from both critics and audiences upon release. Rumba named the Jazz-Femma Awarded (2019) group “a cult band of the future,” while Savon Sanomat called them “a trailblazer of their generation.” Following the release of Horros, the band has performed numerous acclaimed shows not only in Finland but also in countries including the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, and Estonia.

At ODDfest, VIRTA will perform a special set with VJ Folded Visuals. This performance is brought to the stage in collaboration with Aavistus.

Wanda O Rly is a science communicator, stage host, performer, and game industry executive with a rare gift for making every room feel smarter, bolder, and more alive.

Also known as Valtteri Lahti, Wanda is the Co-founder and COO of award-winning applied games studio Psyon Games, with a background spanning speaking, moderating, education, and leadership across games, culture, technology, and society. Wanda brings together sharp intellect, effortless charm, and a delicious sense of theatricality, moving with ease between insight, provocation, and spectacle.

For a festival like ODDfest—where ideas, creativity, experimentation, and nightlife collide—Wanda brings exactly the kind of presence that can cherish both worlds at once. By day, Wanda elevates conversations with wit, clarity, and curiosity; by night, Wanda turns the temperature up with glamour, instinct, and irresistible stage command. The result is a host who doesn’t just connect the program, but amplifies the full ODDfest experience.

Winged is the first end-to-end agentic dating app. Instead of endless swiping, Winged introduces a personal AI agent that learns about you, understands your preferences, and actively navigates your dating life to find meaningful matches on your behalf.

The idea for Winged was born from years of frustration with traditional dating apps, endless swiping, low-quality matches, and connections that rarely lead anywhere meaningful.

Winged’s mission is to transform dating from a time-consuming game into a more intentional and human experience, helping people build deeper, meaningful connections and relationships.

Winged is where the new era of dating begins.

At ODDfest, the Winged team will be hosting a special speed dating workshop and afterparty activities. More information coming soon.