Pre-note Moving in November 2025
Program release September 12th
Dear public, friends, and colleagues,
By now, it has become a tradition to write a pre-note to you before the festival program is officially released. As I write this, it’s the end of July. While I am looking forward to a summer break, my mind is still spinning, revolving around this year’s festival program.
In a text by Claudia La Rocco* I came across a phrase by Sakyong Mipham that caught my attention, particularly the second half: Planting a Flower on a Rock. I could not stop thinking about it and was wondering, if: Planting Trees in Sand would be a more accurate metaphor for today’s world. Both images carry an almost utopian impossibility–and yet, they speak about resistance, patience, and making the impossible happen; as growing something delicate and fragile under hard circumstances or something large and enduring in an unstable environment.
I have been also thinking again about the Finnish title of the festival: Liikkeellä marraskuussa. When run through automatic translation, it does not translate as Moving in November–instead, it gives On the move in November. In German: Unterwegs im November or Aufbruch im November; in French: En route en novembre. A subtle but significant shift. These variations suggest not simply motion, but departure, transition–a state of being in-between. We are not merely “moving” in November; we are setting out, closing our jackets and going, leaving something behind, heading towards the unknown. The whereto is not defined yet–but we are on the move.
I am intrigued by this. Movement stands in opposition to stagnation; it implies change–a shift, a becoming. It makes me think of the persistence of water: how, over time, it carves holes through stone. The movement quality of water carries within it a profound sense of resistance and endurance but also rest.
There is, quite literally, “die Ruhe vor dem Sturm”; the German saying for “the calm before the storm”, describing the peaceful, fleeting moment of stillness before something shifts, before the chaos arrives.
But what if the storm is constant? How do we find a calm phase–a moment of rest–within ongoing turbulences?
All these evoked images–the atmospheres and qualities–I find reflected in this year’s Moving in November program, through the invited artistic works. Rest, resistance, endurance and the ability to invite contemplation and reflection into the spaces, they have imagined for us. Spaces that hold us and bring us together for a while.
Rest can be a form of resistance–a conscious stepping aside, a pause to observe. Not to stand paralysed, but to continue moving differently. It takes resilience not to be constantly thrown around by the spinning, speeding world around us, but to take the time to reflect, to rest amidst the ongoing noise. With this in mind, I invite a collective moment of digestion–a shared pause–as we dive into this year’s Moving in November program.
Soon, the wait has an end: we release this year’s program on September 12th.
In November, you will experience an international program alongside our Focus on the Local Landscape and we warmly invite you again to participate in our Soup Talks series and the Audience Club.
Yours,
Kerstin Schroth & the Moving in November team
*(Claudia La Rocco: “Certain Things”, Afternoon Editions N°4)