The Arctic Arts Festival ( no, Festspillene i Nord-Norge) is a festival based in

Harstad ( se, Hárstták) is the second-most populated municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. It is mostly located on the large island of Hinnøya. The municipal center is the Harstad (town), town of Harstad, the most populous town in Centra ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. It was first held in 1965, and consists of music, theatre and art performances. The festival lasts one week and is held in June. The Arctic Arts Festival is active throughout the year and has arranged annual festivals in Harstad since 1965. From 1995 to 2015 the festival was acknowledged as a festival of national importance, called "knutepunktfestival", and received funding through the government budget. The Arctic Arts Festival is made possible through various sources of funding from the Norwegian state, Finnmark, Troms and Nordland regional councils, as well as the local Harstad council. In February 2016 the festival launched a new arts and culture magazine called HØTT. The Arctic Arts Festival has great faith in arts from the north! The festival is an Arctic event with ambitions of becoming the world's most important arts festival for the entire Arctic region. Together with strong profiles of local arts and culture, the festival sets in motion fresh creative projects. The festival encourage collaborations which bring together different northern regions, and wish to take a leading role as a facilitator of network building and as an arena for Arctic arts and culture. The Arctic Arts Festival will foreground new constellations, partnerships and groundbreaking independent productions. The Arctic Arts Festival administers arts funding which amounts to awards of in total, 1,3 million kroner annually. The aim is to stimulate local arts and culture, and to fund diverse projects in the fields of theatre, music and visual arts. Through our Young Artists Stipend and Open Call funding we allocate support for creative theatrical projects which challenge the boundaries of artistic expression through new collaborations. We want to provide the opportunity for artists to think big, push the boundaries and take chances! The Arctic Arts Festival arranges annually NUK (The Northern Norwegian Youth Festival) during the festival week.

Arctic Arts Summit

In June 2017, under the direction of Maria Utsi, the festival launched Arctic Arts Summit; a Pan-Arctic cultural conference for "policymakers and stakeholders from the cultural sector throughout the Arctic region". The Arctic Arts Summit is a biannual event, rotating between Arctic states and territories. After the first edition in

in 2017, the second edition was helt in June 2019 in

Rovaniemi Rovaniemi ( , ; sme, Roavvenjárga ; smn, Ruávinjargâ; sms, Ruäʹvnjargg) is a city and municipality of Finland. It is the administrative capital and commercial centre of Finland's northernmost province, Lapland, and its southern part Per� ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

, hosted by

University of Lapland The University of Lapland is located in the city of Rovaniemi, Finland. It was founded in 1979. While UiT The Arctic University of Norway is the northernmost university in the world, the University of Lapland is the most northern university in t ...

. The edition in 2021 was postponed due to the Covid pandemic, and is taking place in

Whitehorse Whitehorse () is the capital of Yukon, and the largest city in Northern Canada. It was incorporated in 1950 and is located at kilometre 1426 (Historic Mile 918) on the Alaska Highway in southern Yukon. Whitehorse's downtown and Riverdale areas ...

Yukon Yukon (; ; formerly called Yukon Territory and also referred to as the Yukon) is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It also is the second-least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 43,964 as ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

in June 2022. The Canadian edition is co-hosted by The

Government of Yukon Yukon (; ; formerly called Yukon Territory and also referred to as the Yukon) is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It also is the second-least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 43,964 as ...

and the

Canada Council for the Arts The Canada Council for the Arts (french: Conseil des arts du Canada), commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown corporation established in 1957 as an arts council of the Government of Canada. It acts as the federal government's principal i ...

References

Music festivals in Norway Harstad Recurring events established in 1965 Festivals established in 1965 Music festivals established in 1965 {{troms-geo-stub