FROM NATIONAL PRESENTATION TO INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION - Exploring Cultural Cooperation in the Finnish and Estonian Theatre Festival fields Marja-Liisa Kirves Master’s Thesis Arts Management Sibelius Academy University of the Arts Helsinki Fall 2019 ABSTRACT Thesis Title Number of pages From National Presentation to International Cooperation - 106 + references and Exploring Cultural Cooperation in the Finnish and Estonian appendixes Theatre Festival fields Author Semester Fall 2019 Marja-Liisa Kirves Degree programme Arts Management Abstract Estonia and Finland have a unique relationship sharing economic interests, Finno-Ugrian roots and cultural connections of tens of years. In this thesis I ask, how is this relationship portrayed in the cultural cooperation occurring between the nations today. My operational setting are arts organizations, and more specifically the theatre festival fields in both countries. I have conducted a mixed method desk research by gathering and analysing both qualitative and quantitative data from 15 Finnish and 13 Estonian theatre festivals. The theory section presents the concepts of Cultural Policy and Cultural Diplomacy to offer a more governmental viewpoint, and Cultural Cooperation and Strategic Management, to present the organizational aims of the theatre festival field. The first chapter presents the introduction and background to the subject. The second chapter presents the theory and the third discusses on the research methods and design. The fourth chapter presents the analysis and findings of the desk research as well as the analysis of the cultural policies of Finland and Estonia. The fifth chapter presents conclusions derived from the findings and the sixth discusses the conducted study and further research. The Estonian and Finnish theatre festival pools have similarities but are different in their international actions, funding schemes and in the booking of their programme. The Estonian festivals are highly international in their booking, and the cultural policy of Estonia as well as the offered funding schemes support international actions. The Finnish theatre festival field is more focused on domestic programming, which can also be reflected from their funding schemes. The Estonian festival pool books more, and more versatile Finnish programme compared to the Finnish festivals that do not focus on Estonian offering in general. The festival organizations between the two pools had not conducted cooperation, and other traces of a special connection between Finland and Estonia were also not found from the chosen sample. From the results, the performing arts groups have conducted the most cultural collaboration and would be an interesting target group for further research. Keywords Cultural Cooperation, Cultural Policy, Strategic Management, Cultural Diplomacy, Estonia, Finland, Theatre festival, Desk Research, Mixed Method Research, Finno-Ugric connection Additional information The thesis has been revised by a plagiarism inspection system by Kaasinen Matti, 28.11.2019. TABLE OF CONTENTS FROM NATIONAL PRESENTATION TO INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION ................... 1 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................... 2 1.1. AIM OF THE STUDY AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS ................................................................................... 3 1.2. RESEARCH APPROACH ................................................................................................................................. 4 1.3. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY ..................................................................................................................... 6 1.3.1. Describing the setting: Finland and Estonia in a nutshell ............................................... 7 1.3.2. About the Finnish-Estonian relationship in culture and the arts ................................. 9 1.3.3. Shortly about theatre, festivals and theatre festivals in Estonia and Finland ...... 10 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .................................................................................................... 14 2.1. DEFINING CULTURE ................................................................................................................................... 14 2.2. CULTURAL POLICY ...................................................................................................................................... 15 2.3. CULTURAL DIPLOMACY .............................................................................................................................. 20 2.4. CULTURAL COOPERATION ......................................................................................................................... 23 2.5. STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT IN THE ARTS ................................................................................................ 25 2.6. A SHORT SUMMARY ................................................................................................................................... 28 3. RESEARCH METHODS .................................................................................................................. 30 3.1. METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH OF THE STUDY ..................................................................................... 30 3.2. DATA COLLECTION ..................................................................................................................................... 31 3.2.1. The Operational Setting and sample ....................................................................................... 33 3.2.2. Tools of the Research and collecting the data ..................................................................... 35 3.2.3. The analysis of the data ................................................................................................................ 39 3.3. CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON THE RESEARCH PROCESS ........................................................................ 41 4. ANALYSIS AND RESULTS .............................................................................................................. 42 4.1. PRESENTING THE FESTIVAL POOL ........................................................................................................... 42 4.2. VALUES, MISSION, VISION AND STRATEGY ............................................................................................ 47 4.2.1. Vision, Mission and Strategies of the Finnish Festivals ...................................................... 48 4.2.2. Vision, Mission and Strategies of the Estonian Festivals ................................................ 51 4.3. PROGRAMMING OF THE FESTIVAL POOLS ............................................................................................... 55 4.3.1. The audiences of Finnish and Estonian festival pool’s ..................................................... 56 4.3.2. The Programming of the Finnish festival pool .................................................................... 58 4.3.3. The Programming of the Estonian festival pool ................................................................. 69 4.3.4. The Cultural Policy analysis of the festival pools ............................................................... 78 4.4. CULTURAL POLICY ANALYSIS OF ESTONIA AND FINLAND ................................................................... 83 4.4.1. The Finnish Cultural Policy ......................................................................................................... 84 4.4.2. The Estonian Cultural Policy ...................................................................................................... 90 5. CONCLUSIONS AND MAIN FINDINGS ....................................................................................... 95 5.1. THE EFFECTS OF FUNDING POSSIBILITIES ............................................................................................ 95 5.2. INTERNATIONAL AIMS OF THE FESTIVALS IN REALIZATION ............................................................... 98 5.3. COOPERATION AND COLLABORATION IN THE FESTIVAL POOLS ........................................................ 99 5.4. FINAL THOUGHTS .................................................................................................................................... 101 6. FINAL DISCUSSION ..................................................................................................................... 104 6.1. LIMITATIONS AND FURTHER RESEARCH ............................................................................................. 105 7. REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................ 107 8. APPENDIXES ................................................................................................................................ 117 1 1. INTRODUCTION Estonia and Finland have a unique relationship sharing economic interests, Finno- Ugrian roots and cultural connections of tens of years. The official embassy websites of Finland and Estonia praise the relationship and the cultural cooperation between the countries, but specific information of the current cultural cooperation is difficult to find, as it seems that it is not actively measured or presented. The cultural cooperation between Finland and Estonia is a relevant topic due to especially three factors: the enhancing Estonian economy is changing the relationship of Finland and Estonia