HELSINKI SYNDROME is a performance art group based in Seattle, WA -- led by Rachel Hynes + Mike Pham – producing non-linear, ensemble driven theater pieces that incorporate text, movement, music, and imagery into bold, rigorous, imaginative performance works.

HELSINKI SYNDROME is an outgrowth of our collaborations with Seattle’s HKPG [High Kindergarten Performance Group] led by internationally acclaimed performance artists Matt Fontaine and Tamara Paris. HKPG produced two generative performance works: SPADE COOLEY’S NIGHTMARE and COMPUTER. Irreverent, secretive, absurd, obscene, HKPG was the catalyst for the creation of HELSINKI SYNDROME.

In the Summer of 2006, we created HELSINKI SYNDROME, inspired upon a specific aesthetic we shared outside of our work with HKPG. A concerted emphasis on personal experience, emotional connection, high-level execution, self-awareness, theatrical flair, and a sense of humor defines the HELSINKI SYNDROME aesthetic.

HELSINKI SYNDROME consists of a rotating list of collaborators, who are modern, multi-disciplinary storytellers: presenting the facts and drawing no conclusions. By taking situations out of context and observing them in “in-between” spaces, we investigate the blurred visions of nostalgia and modern dilemmas.

HELSINKI SYNDROME is a common misnomer for Stockholm Syndrome [the psychological response of having compassion for your captors despite the dangers in which you have been placed]. In this way, HELSINKI SYNDROME moves closer to the things that capture us, risking the possibility that we might just get it wrong.

HELSINKI SYNDROME has performed to sold-out houses and critical acclaim, described as “Young theatrical explorers…in the rebel spirit of The Wooster Group and Forced Entertainment” [The Seattle Times] and have premiered pieces at Seattle venues Annex Theatre, Open Circle Theater, Henry Art Gallery, and On the Boards’ 12 Minutes Max and Northwest New Works Festival. In 2008, HELSINKI SYNDROME will participate in a summer residency co-production with Richard Foreman’s Ontological-Hysteric Theater, marking the New York debut of TRUE NORTH, produced in association with the Ontological-Hysteric Incubator.