Virve Sutinen

Virve Sutinen has been appointed new director of Dansens Hus Stockholm, to take over in January 2008 when present director Kenneth Kvarnström leaves his desk for the rehearsal studio again. A choreographer, editor and scholar, Virve Sutinen is one of the founders of the Kiasma museum for contemporary art in Helsinki. Since it opened in 1998, she served on the board and as director of the Kiasma Theatre. In 2000, together with Mikael Aaltonen, she founded URB – Urban Festival and has acted as artistic director for several other contemporary festivals.

Sutinen is connected to a variety of international networks and was made president of the IETM (Informal European Theatre Meeting) earlier this year. In short, she has the impressively extensive CV the board of Dansens Hus wished their new director to have, or as chairperson Astrid Assefa puts it: “We were looking for a combination of qualities; we wanted a person who had proved him- or herself to be a skilled leader, who was a qualified artist and scholar, and who had an extensive international network.” With great satisfaction, Assefa admits that the board thought it might not be easy to find such a person. In the end they had quite ...