Culture.ee’s weekly recommendations: 4–10 Feb 2019

In the 1960s, Athelstan Spilhaus – a visionary scientist and futurist comic strip writer – assembled a team of experts to develop a bold experiment: the Minnesota Experimental City (MXC). Frustrated by the growing problem of urban pollution, Spilhaus designed this new city to employ the latest technologies in communications, transport, pollution control and energy supply: all under a large domed enclosure. But when a site in northern Minnesota was selected, politicians and sceptical scientists united to challenge the project. With access to amazing recordings of committee meetings and taped interviews with Spilhaus himself, the director Chad Freidrichs paints a most involving portrait of the man, the changing ’60s and an idea that almost revolutionised the planet.

Party series Konsum presents Jakob Schauer who is a Vienna based sound artist and producer. With his solo project, he experiments in the acoustic field of drone and experimental music. By mixing complex sound algorithms and pre-recorded material, Schauer creates multiple layers of sound structures in tonal and atonal moods and grows acoustic landscapes of variable physics, sizes and geometries. In his installations, Jakob Schauer researches on the interplay of space and sound and focusses on the spatial positions and movement of sounds in architecture or environments. In addition, the night includes performances by Mihkel Kleis aka Ratkiller, Wondering O, Shion and Weak People.

Roísín Murphy is an Irish singer, songwriter and music producer who became famous as the singer of the electronic duo Moloko which began its activity in the mid-1990s. The first appearance of Tribute to Roísín Murphy took place in February 2017. Two years later the band meets again and includes a bass player in their ranks in order to allow the musicians more space for experimentation, and in this way touch the line between electronic dance music and jazz in their compositions. Tracks from the times of Moloko as well as from Roísín’s solo career will be performed.

The first film of the Department of Animation of Estonian Academy of Arts, which won the prize at the international film festival, was Martinus Klemet’s ‘Light My Fire’ in 2008. Now, ten years later, after making 121 films, the Department of Animation has the honour to announce that the number of prizes won by EAA student films at international festivals has exceeded one hundred and the EAA as an animation school is already known in the world. In the event of winning 100 awards, the Department of Animation of EAA will show all the 27 award-winning films.

The performance ‘Pushing Daisies’ focuses on stimulation and death in a collectively shared experience – gives notice but does not keep from it. A socially recurring phenomenon is designing personas. Enacted public programming – mediating sensibilities from the barbaric use of media semiotics to finely shape the behavioural mind, leaving ambiguity where the need precedes supply or where the offer motivates demand. The performance attempts for desperate effect considering vulgarity and the formation of universal compositions. Visibly passive, covertly active communication will be presented with icons.

Make sure you don’t miss Finland’s number one dream-pop star Jaakko Eino Kalevi live as he hits the road on his biggest headline tour yet in support of his acclaimed new album ‘Out of Touch’ (Domino Records). Expect all the hits and plenty of surprises!

This year Premiere, a platform meant for up and coming choreographers, introduces the debut productions by Sanghoon Lee and Grėtė Šmitaitė. Šmitaitė’s ‘What Do I Cry For?’ takes the pulse of sorrow. It displays a puzzle of choices, distances and dives between a person and their feelings. Lee’s ‘It is Still Impossible to Exist at Two Places at Once’ experiments to be aware of the gap in between two opposites; right and left, inside and outside, action and reaction, or 0 and 1 in a mathematical binary system.

Everyone is welcome to celebrate Shrove Tuesday with a joint Estonian-Hungarian celebration! In cooperation with the Estonian Institute, Hungarian Institute celebrates Estonian and Hungarian Shrove Tuesday traditions! The program includes sledge ride in Hirvepark, traditional Shrove Tuesday soup, Hungarian and Estonian donuts (fánks) at the Hungarian Institute, Estonian and Hungarian folk dance room with experienced teachers and activities for children.

In 2019, the biggest joint folk party of the Baltic states takes place in Estonia. The pre-parties of the festival will be held all over Estonia. The Tallinn pre-party will be held on February 9 at Salme Culture Centre and the performers include many folk ensembles, both dancers and singers.

In the broadest sense, this exhibition looks at the material culture and the stories, meanings, and transformations that lie in it. There has been a long tradition in society to admire objects of tangible culture from the past, but how do we connect with objects in our contemporary society that surrounds us daily? This exhibition explores the social stories, hopes, and desires that have settled in the matter around us. Artists are like anthropologists who study the different meanings of things through form, materials, usage functions and socio-cultural histories.

This festival is dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the Association of Estonian Professional Musicians and gives an overview of the richness and versatility of Estonian interpretation art. More than 80 Estonian brightest instrumentalists and singers will perform on four nights. The program of the festival includes music from early Baroque to Romanticism, contemporary music and jazz. Estonian classics play also an important role.