Culture.ee’s weekly recommendations: 26 Nov – 2 Dec 2018

Since Thursday, 22 November, Dénes Farkas’s personal exhibition “When I Close My Eyes” is opened in the large gallery of the Tartu Art House. With the installations at the present exhibition, Farkas has tried to form personal experiences where he has also been the protagonist into a consistent whole. Different works fit together using dream logic and their effect in the gallery is rather abstract. Finding either truth or the meaning of life seems equally possible or impossible. The works use the poems of the American poet Traci Brimhall who also observes very personal questions in her works by creating very abstract connections.

Kuressaare Film Week 2018 is held on November 24-30 and the programme of this week includes the following movies: Loving Vincent (Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman), Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist (Lorna Tucker), The House That Jack Built (Lars von Trier), Vello Salo. Everyday Mysticism (Jaan Tootsen), Bohemian Rhapsody (Bryan Singer), Eia’s Christmas at Phantom Owl Farm (Anu Aun) and Loro (Paolo Sorrentino).

“Tallinn feat. Reval” is a new festival of early music. During this week, there will be concerts of such great musicians as Endrik Üksvärav, Maria Krestinskaja, Imbi Tarum, Reinut Tepp, Sven Schwannberger and ensembles Heinavanker, Gamut Consort, I Fedeli and Cantores Vagantes. You can hear music by Telemann, Bach, Vivaldi, Poglietti, Händel and others.

A runic song is a song demanding to be sung. The messages concealed into ancient texts will speak to modern people just as well. Topics that seem so actual to us today have been sung by our ancestors long before. And it must be done time and again. The messages of the male voices are enriched and set into musical patterns by the ambient sound of kantele, guitar, and electronics. Performers include Estonian National Male Choir, Celia Roose (folk instruments), Tuule Kann (zithers), Robert Jürjendal (guitars, electronics). Conducted by Mikk Üleoja.

One Gesture is a show about sign languages. It is a show about communicating with the world – with the world of the hearing and with the world of the other Deaf. How does communication work? How are knowledge, emotion and culture transmitted, produced and processed? If language is the only reality we have access to, what can we learn about the world from the languages of the Deaf? What is universal about their experience of communicating, and what is unique? And how come none of my friends have any Deaf friends? There are English and Estonian subtitles. Free of charge, but registration is needed. NB! Performance on Nov 28 is followed by artist talk, translated into English, Estonian and Estonian sign language.

Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is a colourful world of fantasy, where reality and mysticism meet. There are strange creatures and strange things happen. Each audience member is free to interpret the things happening on the stage the way they like; there are no borders and no limits: just let your fantasy fly!
Directing and choreography: Maria Goltsman
Choreography and performance: Irina Federova, Märt Agu, Mehis Saaber, Maria Goltsman, Sergei Kuzmin, dance students

“Christmas Jazz” is a two-week intimate festival suitable for Christmas time which fills the churches, concert halls and clubs with beautiful jazz music in late November and early December. The main performers of the festival are the Portuguese singer-songwriter Salvador Sobral and American top vocal jazz singer Lizz Wright, who performs with Estonian Dream Big Band. The opening concert of “Christmas Jazz” brings a concert performance “9 Hymns to Freedom” to the stage of Alexela Concert House. This combines nine parts created by nine combinations of different Estonian jazz composers. New works can also be heard at the Niguliste Museum at the concert of organist Ulla Krigul. There will also be concerts by Sandra and Jalmar Vabarna, Duo Teemu Viinikainen-Andre Maaker, the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir with Robert Jürjendal, Arve Henriksen and Madis Metsamart, and others.

The next movie night of the Festival of Strange Films presents something strange from the land of the rising sun – the movie Big Man Japan. This is a 2007 Japanese science fiction movie, which, in style, resembles a mockumentary or a fake documentary. The film follows a seemingly ordinary Japanese young man who can turn into a 30 meters high giant who protects Japan against all kinds of big evil monsters.

This winter, the bookstore REaD and the antiquarian bookstore Raamaturinglus will organize 1 euro book fair together. Raamaturinglus offers books from the 19th-21st century. Bookstore REaD also has all kinds of literature from different periods and in different languages. The likelihood of discovering all sorts of weird, interesting and rare finds is high since there are several thousands of books available and the price of each book is only 1 euro!

Christmas brings a new quality to the Estonian circus scene. Christmas circus performances by young talented Estonian and Finnish contemporary circus professionals will come to the Salme Cultural Centre in December. The performance is about Christmas from the perspective of a contemporary human being. Under the cover of normality, there are a few small tricks and surprising little things hidden. Suitable for the whole family!