Teija Vaittinen

Teija Vaittinen is a performer and theatre and circus educator whose work is characterised by comedy, (failing) bodies, improvisation, clowning and movement.

She comes from Finland and has lived in Berlin since 2012, where she also completed a master’s degree in theatre education at the Berlin University of the Arts. She studied acting and sociology in Finland.

Together with the interdisciplinary artists’ collective ABA NAIA, she regularly produces performances. The collective deals with topics such as female comedy, sexuality, absurdity, humour, deviation, thought flow and failure. ABA NAIA’s last performances were staged at the English Theatre Berlin | International Performing Arts Center. The collective has also performed at the Red Pearl Clown Festival in Finland, the Performing Arts Festival in Berlin and the Hundertpro Festival in Mühlheim, among others.

In addition to her work with ABA NAIA, Teija Vaittinen creates clownish solo acts and directs numerous theatre projects with children and young people. Her interests include clowning, improvisation, dance, movement and multilingualism. In recent years, she has realised projects at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, the Grips Theater, Das Weite Theater, jtw Spandau and several youth cultural centres, schools and daycare centres, among others.