The story
Kuopio Dance Festival in Kuopio
Kuopio Dance Festival, first staged in 1970 following 1968 planning by city and arts leaders including Elsa Sylvestersson of the Kuopio Ballet School, is the oldest and most wide-ranging international dance festival in the Nordic countries. Held each June, it draws around thirty-five thousand visitors to a program spanning contemporary dance, ballet, and related performing arts across Kuopio's venues.
Mayor Eino Luukkonen, theatre director Aimo Hiltunen, arts figure Lauri Siimes, and Elsa Sylvestersson, the newly appointed director of the Kuopio Ballet School, came together in 1968 to plan an internationally renowned summer event for their city, and the resulting first international dance festival, then simply called Kuopio Dances, was staged in 1970, with the festival's supporting association itself founded a year earlier in 1969.