TOWERS OF MELANCHOLY, 2016

This dance performance is a repeated successful collaboration between choreographer and director Aira Naginevičiūtė, poet and playwright Gabriele Labanauskaite, composer Vladas Dieninis and scenographer Arūnas Adomaitis. These artists managed to unite dance, text, poetry and music into one mesmerizing performance.

TOWERS OF MELANCHOLY sets off to experiment with the poetic language, metaphors and it develops a new movement and music lexicon to paint the darkness and light of the human existence, divinity, world and existential void. This interdisciplinary project researches that state of mind, where everybody experiences the marginalised parts of themselves – solitude and new understanding of spacetime. This particular state allows us to meditate on the fog, to die and reborn in different bodies, unfamiliar forms, to be able to introspect and reflect on the reality.

“Melancholy is treated as an unconscious state which happens to us unplanned and unexpectedly. Melancholy is like a fog, which covers the thoughts. It’s like a field, in which we deeply navigate in our repeated experiences. It’s like an oasis, where we can meet ourselves,” – says A. Naginevičiūtė.

Photography: tiketa.lt

Performance does explore melancholy, but is not dramatic. Sweet sorrow and anguish go hand in hand with the irony and tenderness, a true human emotion turns into the aesthetic reality of a scary and beautiful light of our inner selves.

“TOWERS OF MELANCHOLY analyzes different forms of melancholy and seeks to break the stereotype of melancholy as something very obscure and depressive. Actually, it is important to recognize and accept this kind of state; it hides in the fog, a teardrop, a relationship, togetherness or even the drizzle” – comments A. Naginevičiūtė.

The name of performance was inspired by the poem written by Gabriele Labanauskaite. Choreographer A. Naginevičiūtė used it as a means of inspiration. During the dance performance G. Labanauskaite herself recites this and other of her poems.

Photography: tiketa.lt

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Yesterday I saw the towers of melancholy tumble down

Yesterday I saw how to demolish means to build

Yesterday I saw how bleary are the eyelids of a dream

And how the morning fights the legions of the night

Yesterday I saw how butterflies choke

Recover and grow wings of tempered steel

Under their bellies. Then take off easily

And fly the past-tense words into the day

Yesterday I saw how our wishes kill us

Yesterday I saw how fog withstands

Yesterday I saw how charms dissolve

The die is cast, the choice is made: to be.
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Photography: Laura Vansevičienė

CREATIVE TEAM

Choreographer: Aira Naginevičiūtė
Playwright: Gabrielė Labanauskaitė
Composer: Vladas Dieninis
Scenographer: Arūnas Adomaitis
Lighting designer: Vladimiras Šerstabojevas
Performers: Goda Laurinavičiūtė, Greta Grinevičiūtė, Gabrielė Labanauskaitė
Initiators: Kaunas Artists’ House, dance theatre “AIROS”, audio-visual poetry band “AVASPO”

GONDII SYNDROME, 2014

The actual Gondii syndrome is a toxoplasmosis virus, causing the inflammation of the nervous system, impaired thinking or orientation and the change in behaviour. GONDII SYNDROME by the director Saulė Norkutė and experimental music collective AVaspo was a performance, a diagnostic algorithm with the actual causes and unpredictable consequences, duplicating itself in everyone. Not always people are aware of the illness. Some are aware about it, but show no desire to be treated. It comes as a parallel to the society that has no need to break the confining stereotypes and the hierarchic mindset. If there is the environment and the circumstances for the virus to spread, it does, and people get infected despite their gender, political views, sexual orientation or style.

Honest, subtle and wild poetic narrative of this performance talks about the post-modern human being. It focuses on the woman, who is imprisoned in her own archive of memories, events and experiences. At first sight her life appears to be precisely controlled and perfectly managed. But in reality it lacks some essential components: the passion, the drive and..the courage to love.

GONDII SYNDROME is an authentic performance of modern electronics, poetry and visuals. Director S. Norkutė and AVaspo collective used this performance to raise some really uncomfortable questions of contemporary sexuality and invite the audience to discuss the multilayerness of a man, explore the instilled truths of happiness, love and static identity and find the roots in the complexity of reality. What happens when these truths are no longer real? When emotions and sensations of the body lose touch with the acknowledged dogmas?

It is lost to the history who and when decided to divide the world into men’s and women’s, into black and white, weak and strong. This is why the collision between internal and social norms forces the creative team to ask – how do we establish our roles? Are we, as physical bodies and humans, just the battlefields with consciousness? How much does the world depend on us and how much of it are we able to change?

CREATIVE TEAM

Director: Saulė Norkutė
Playwright: Gabrielė Labanauskaitė
Music: Vladas Dieninis (AVASPO), Gediminas Žygus (AVASPO), Miša Skalskis, Donatas Tubutis
Scenography: Virginija Jusevičienė
Lighting designer: Simas Sirutavičius
Video artist: Otto Kylmälä
Designer: Greta Stančiauskaitė
Performers: Gabrielė Labanauskaitė (AVaspo), Beatričė Bukantytė, Goda Alsytė, Augustė Tomkutė

Category: Performances