Author: Martyna

Towers of Melancholy

Posted on by Martyna

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
 

//
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.
//

 

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”

Literary mentoring

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LITERARY MENTORING

 

“So okay – there you are in your room with the shade down and the door shut and the plug pulled out of the base of telephone. You’ve blown up your TV and committed yourself to a thousand words a day, come hell or high water. Now comes the big question: What are you going to write about? And the equally big answer: Anything you damn well want.”
Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

 

Literary mentoring is designed for individual learning following a tailor-made curriculum at the convenient time. These individual consultations focus on writers of different types. Some of the former students sought for the basic knowledge of creative writing to start writing in general. Others simply wanted to improve their skills in private.
 
Photography: Shelby Miller
 
Often literary mentoring is necessary for the writers who want to discuss a
particular piece of their work (novel, short story or etc.). They intend to analyse, study and master writing with the help of the professional and the provided theoretical and practical literary knowledge.

⏰Duration of the regular consultation is 1 hour.
 

FEEDBACK

“I remember taking along a final draft of my latest text to the first literary mentoring consultation. I had a feeling that a story might lack some clarity, so I hoped that Gabrielė could help me edit the text and extract the main idea. I had developed the tendency to wrap the text in a way that it was becoming too complicated to the reader. I noticed it while attending creative writing courses with Gabrielė. She has always been honest and humbly advised me where to focus on, what to unwrap to make a story coherent and clear.

After our first individual meeting I left frustrated. Gabrielė advised me to try to divide my so-called final draft into two stories. I had a different feeling: dividing the narrative in two threatened with the loss of meaning. I had that feeling until I sat down to write. I kept meeting with Gabrielė for mentoring and after a few months I had two stories – ready-to-publish novels.”
Dovilė Raustytė, chief of communication at International Film Festival „Kino pavasaris“, writer

“Gabrielė provides literary mentoring consultations, where she actually embodies the subtle equilibrium. She manages to balance sensitive, empathetic and unconditional support with professional, careful and precise insistence. I think these are the qualities of the real teacher! What fascinates me is that Gabrielė also combines learning process with a game. I had even suprised myself coming to the realisation that this childish approach and the inner hazard enabled me to write hypnotic and profound stories.”
Rosita Pipirienė, psychotherapist

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❗ For more information contact Gabrielė Labanauskaitė ➡ [email protected]

Gondii Syndrome

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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

Nunu Project

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“NUNU” PROJECT

 

NUNU was a special project connecting the Holy Trinity of poets – Gabrielė Labanauskaitė, Žygimantas Mesijus Kudirka and Darius Zaizras Jurevičius. They aimed to perform poetry in the most innovative ways possible. During a performance selected pieces of poetry were being conducted, projected and performed live in various voices and tones.
 
NUNU served as an impulse for a dialogue between the poetry and its delivery to the audiences. This project combined the ideas of three different performers, who delivered them in the creative variations of sounds, visuals and gestures.

 
Photography: artnews.lt
 

There is a billion ways to write a poem, but when three artists start working on one poem, the real challenge begins. All the performed verses were a result of the fusion among project members. At the beginning of each meeting a group would sit, choose a topic and write using effective methods of creative writing. They harnessed the principles of surreal and automatic writing that helped the group to come up with the postmodern and intensive creative work.
 


 
Instead of music poets were using documentary-style visuals. These visuals portrayed the real people in the streets, who were trying to conduct the rhythm and the feeling of a particular poem. But it was no ordinary conduction: the group decided to forget everything they had ever known about the conducting and devised an innovative technique of conducting.. poetry. Three of them came up with a special code consisting of a dozen particular signs, giving the special effect to the narrative of the poem.
 

Is it still hard to imagine this creative process? Please, take a look at this live video of NUNU performance in Tartu, Estonia!
 

AVaspo

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AVASPO COLLECTIVE

 

AVaspo was a band performing audio-visual poetry. It highly promoted and contributed to the development of the experimental music concept in Lithuania. This group had remained on stage from 2009 to 2016, all of band’s members were also active participants of the local and international art community. This talented audio-visual collective managed to translate the visions and dreams of its leader – poet and playwright, Gabrielė Labanauskaitė into the vivid flow of sounds and images. Magic of audio-visual technologies and professionalism helped to fuse the intriguing talents of the new generation composers, multi-instrumentalists and video artists.
 
AVASPO band
 
AVaspo stood for the modern poetry and put all the effort to popularize it both in Lithuania and Europe. As a band it had always been in transformation, constantly experimenting. The axis of the creative content was the mystic, psychedelic, philosophic and even grotesque lyrics of Gabriele Labanauskaite. It cultivated the improvisation and was complementedwith the sounds and visuals.
 

As in the Mayan calendar, the years gone by

Add up to zero

Signifying nothing more than an empty shell.

Our existence

Is equally insignificant

Or the same fulfillment –

Depends on how you look at it.

(poem “In the Mayan Calendar”)

 

AVaspo music did not receive much sympathy from the critics at first. Lithuanian music observer Goda Raibytė confessed that a listener of such music must be mature enough: “Taming the music of AVASPO equals to taming a wild beast – one has to do it carefully, with love and attention even to the slightest detail. Everything is important in this kind of music: it offers plenty of surprise, it does not have a plan to follow, but ensures an uncontrollable aesthetic experience….”
 

 
Eventually, AVaspo found its target audience and discovered the way to the very soul of it. In 2013 a band was awarded as “The Best Experimental Music Group of 2012” at the national level.

Members of AVaspo were always open to any kind of novelty and experiments. They even performed at the obscure locations: they employed the atypicality of any place to make it a puzzle, a teaser, a creative challenge. Their shows were known to balance on the edge of a performance and a concert. Shows playfully touched the topics of the interpersonal and public misunderstandings, war and peace, visual culture and the triumph of the mass media, love and tolerance. The band brought the variety of modern poetry forms to the spotlight, gathered the artists of different disciples to work together and established a relationship with the foreign artists. One of the most distinguished accomplishments of AVaspo was the primary idea and organization of the annual interdisciplinary art festival “TARP”.
 

ALBUMS

💿2013 3rd album CD “OCEAN IS BLEEDING”. New album tour in Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipėda and Šiauliai.


 

💿2010 2nd album “NIAGARA”. New album tour in Iceland, Austria, Germany, Czech Republic, Lithuania and a show at Contemporary Art Festival “Virus” in Šiauliai, Lithuania.


 

💿2009 1st album CD “THERE IS NO OCEAN”. New album show in Vilnius and at the International Experimental Music Festival “SKIF” in Saint Petersburg, Russia.


 

AWARDS

🏆2013 “The Best Experimental Music Band of 2012”, National Alternative Music Awards “T.E.T.E”, Vilnius, Lithuania.
 

PROJECTS

2016 Premiere of the poetry and dance performance TOWERS OF MELANCHOLY with the dance theatre “Airos” (director: Aira Naginevičiūtė) at the theatre “Menų spaustuvė” in Vilnius and the National Kaunas Drama theatre, Lithuania
 
Photography: tiketa.lt
 

2014 Premiere of poetry and music performance GONDII SYNDROME (director Saulė Norkutė) at Kirtimai Cultural Center, Vilnius, Lithuania
 

 

2013 Premiere of music and dance performance “Recycling Rituals” together with the International Interdisciplinary project at the culture bar “Kablys”, Culture Night Festival, Vilnius, Lithuania
 

2011 Performance/concert/art installation “De Solitude” with the director of experimental cinema Nicolas Perge and video artist Raphael Dupont at Culture Night Festival in Vilnius, Lithuania.
 

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🎧 Listen to all the AVaspo albums ➡ online!

Monologues, Dialogues and Polylogues

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ADVANCED CREATIVE WRITING COURSE: CHARACTERS TALK.
MONOLOGUES, DIALOGUES & POLYLOGUES

 

These creative writing courses for the advanced level individuals are focused on the language of the characters talk. Direct and internal conversations help a reader to understand a character and its world better. In addition, talking characters bring the vitality and intensity to any kindof story. This kind of course covering the principles of building monologues, dialogues and polylogues between and within the characters requires for different kind of mastery. It is possible to develop such skills without being a playwriter or screenwriter.

Timothy L BrockPhotography: Timothy L Brock

Gabrielė Labanauskaitė seeks to introduce the group to the techniques of building up the monologue, dialogue and polylogue. It is important to make the characters talk and learn to expose their traits and disclose individual stories through conversations with itself and others.

Duration: 20 academic hours

OBJECTIVES:

      • to renew and complement the knowledge of the narrative structure and development of characters;
      • to study the main principles of creating a monologue, to understand its functions and possibilities;
      • to analyze the principles of dialogue construction, its functions and possibilities;
      • to explore a dialogue as one of the narration methods;
      • to create dialogues and dialogue-based writing;
      • to discuss the polyphonics of polylogue and its structural possibilities;
      • to write and cultivate the fantasy in the most playful way;
      • to establish a relationship with other creative members of a group;
      • to discuss recently gained knowledge and share the work written during the course.

 

QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED:

      • how to come up with a lively dialogue?
      • how to disclose the inner world of every character through conversation?
      • how to use the language to reinstate a certain action?
      • how to create a dynamic, breath-taking conversation?
      • how to regulate the pace of the narrative through the conversation?

 

PROGRAMME OF THE COURSE:

      • introduction, repetition of the theory of narrative structure and character development, equalization of the information;
      • the principles of creating a monologue, its functions and possibilities, creative writing tasks and exercises;
      • the methods of making a dialogue work, its functions and possibilities, creative writing tasks and exercises;
      • the polyphonics of polylogue, its structural possibilities, creative writing task and exercises;
      • evaluation of the course, discussion, share of the creative work with the group mates.

 

Organizers of creative writing courses maintain a right to change the curriculum.

FAQ
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❓ Dates of the upcoming courses and additional information can be received by email → [email protected]or found on social media page ➡ IŠ TYLOS

Creation & Development of Characters

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ADVANCED CREATIVE WRITING:
CREATION & DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHARACTERS

 

There is at least one character in every poem, novel, short-story, fairy-tale, myth, advertisement, news reportage, comic or joke. Upcoming situations usually depend on the characters, once they get a chance to unfold and evolve in certain circumstances. Characters drive a narrative forward. It is usual to indentify with the likeable characters, to go through experiences together, we worry for them, we love them and wish them the best. How to create and develop a character, which would appear closer to a reader than a best friend, relative or a lover?
 
David IskanderPhotography: David Iskander
 
Gabrielė Labanauskaitė seeks to help the group members to enhance existing creative writing and narrative construction skills, focusing on the development of characters: principles of creation, evolution of the individual story and inclusion into the final narrative.

Duration: 21 academic hour
 

OBJECTIVES:

      • to introduce the group to the techical means of character development;
      • to analyze the journey of the main characters in the plot;
      • to continue previous creative practices, stimulate the imagination and fantasy through the certain exercises, focused on the development of characters and the story;
      • to become aware of the existing character archetypes;/span>
      • to discuss about favourite and unpopular characters;
      • to take a playful approach to the theory;
      • to establish a relationship with other group members and expand an individual friend circle;
      • to look into the provided information and share creative work accomplished during the courses.

 

QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED:

      • why do readers still crave for the heroes?
      • what is the most important thing when developing a recognizable and interesting character?
      • what does character dossier consist of?
      • why the endless fight between the antagonist and protagonist is still relevant?
      • what are the differences between foreground, anthax and peripheral characters?
      • why do some characters arise compassion and empathy within, while the others do not look interesting at all?

 

Organizers of creative writing courses maintain a right to change the curriculum.
 
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❓ Dates of the upcoming courses and additional information can be received by email → [email protected]or found on social media page ➡ IŠ TYLOS

Story-telling, Genres & Structures

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ADVANCED CREATIVE WRITING:
STORY-TELLING, GENRES & STRUCTURES

 

Not only the intuition is required in writing a story, but also a solid structure. Structure is highly important for screenwriting, shorter or longer fiction stories, advertisments and even social media posts. It helps to attract attention and reach the certain audience.

Learning about the importance of structures in any type of narrative might sound boring, but it is definitely not: this knowledge helps to understand why some stories are better than the others, how to create the emotional, artistic planes and also how to establish a strong logical foundation.

creative writingPhotography: Glenn Carstens Peters

Gabrielė Labanauskaitė seeks to introduce the group to the principles of narrative construction, concentrating on the structures within any text. This course also involves development of creative writing skills through the exercises and reading of texts.

Duration: 21 academic hour

OBJECTIVES:

      • to introduce to the basics of the narrative structure;
      • to capture imagination and cultivate creativity through writing exercises;
      • to discover all the possible means of structure to create an engaging story;
      • to embed and complement previously built knowledge and establish a relationship with other creative peopleo of a group;
      • to become aware of alternative structures of narrative;
      • to discuss recently gained knowledge and share the work written during the course.

 

QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED:

      • what do jokes, social media messages, and fiction literature have in common?
      • what structural elements comprise a story?
      • what perspectives can be used to narrate a story?
      • what are narrators for?
      • how to create a tension and maintain an intrigue?
      • how to approach a reader?
      • why compositional variety is important?

 

PROGRAMME OF THE COURSE:

      • group and course curriculum introduction, discussion, creative writing tasks and exercises;
      • features, forms & structure of short stories (prose and poetry miniatures, jokes, social media content, etc), creative writing tasks and exercises;
      • text scene, four of its main elements and the maintenance of tension & reader’s engagement, creative writing tasks and exercises;
      • an alternative interpretation of the rules: various structures and their possibilities, creative writing tasks and exercises;
      • development of a longer narratives, including symbols, motifs, parallel storylines and etc., similarities and differences between a novel and a short story, creative writing tasks and exercises;
      • exploration of the favorite genre and discovery of the common tendencies, course evaluation, discussion, sharing of creative work within a group.

 

Organizers of creative writing courses maintain a right to change the curriculum.

FAQ

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❓ Dates of the upcoming courses and additional information can be received by email → [email protected]or found on social media page ➡ IŠ TYLOS

Workshops ‘Iš Tylos’

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CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOPS ‘IŠ TYLOS’

 

Sometimes a simple getaway into the wild is not enough to restore one’s creativity and attract motivation. But an escape into the nature with the like-minded could do that. Participation in the creative writing workshop is an authentic experience combining self-reflection, writing, discussions, inspiration, experiments, tranquility and late night readings by the bonfire.

Writer Gabrielė Labanauskaitė started the project back in 2016. This initiative is focused on awakening of internal creative powers through writing, reading, conversation and silence. Participants of these workshops are really interesting and broad-minded people, who seek to realize and develop their passion for the written word. Some of them are aspiring writers already, others try to implement a habit of casual writing. It is a place for everybody.
Usually workshops take place once in a season and their locations vary. Each workshop has a theme giving a course of writing excercises and topics for discussion. There is none of academic theory, the chosen theme itself becomes an axis of focus. In the past chosen themes highly varied: water, dreams, rituals, archive of memories, archetypes, fata morgana, body. The main purpose of these workshops is not to draw any conclusions, but to recharge and leave the grounds in high spirits.

Writer and teacher Gabrielė Labanauskaitė conducts the workshops herself. Depending on the chosen topic, she also invites guest-speakers to share their experiences and knowledge with the participants.

WHAT TO EXPECT?

  • a dozen of creative writing excercises;
  • a flow of inspiration and creativity;
  • cozy and relaxing atmosphere;
  • peace in silence;
  • some time for self-reflection;
  • sharing of creation work;
  • a break from everyday life;
  • a numerous of individual experiences and relevations.

 

Photography: Viktorija Samarinaitė
Creative writing workshops ‘IŠ TYLOS’ is designed to help to develop writing skills, find the inner voice, rest and rejuvenate, introspect, have quality time in a group and individually and create.

“I am not a writing therapist and do not pretend to be one. But everyone, who has ever participated in these workshops, says that it surely has some therapeutical power. In these few days spent in Nida, Antalieptė or among the walls of monastery in the Old Trakai, we talk, we write, we share and express everything what bothers us. Whereas creative writing courses are more of academic orientation and focuses on theory, practice. It involves a spark of inspiration as well, but relies more on the particular storytelling elements such as characters, structures and dialogues.

After courses or workshops are over, I keep hearing that the former participants have changed their attitude towards creativity itself, writing and even – a lifestyle. I think this is how the real academy of life works!”
Gabrielė Labanauskaitė, organizer and teacher of creative writing courses and workshops

FAQ

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❗For more information about the upcoming workshops contact us ➡ [email protected] or follow social media page ➡ IŠ TYLOS

Podcast Mermaids and Dragons

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PODCAST: MERMAIDS AND DRAGONS

 

“Mermaids and Dragons” is the Lithuanian National Radio podcast hosted by Gabrielė Labanauskaitė. This talk show focuses on lively conversations with exciting and thrilling people, anybody from a mechanic to a philosopher. The aim of this podcast is to harness a story-telling in the unusual way and introduce the audience with the creative challenges faced by the individuals of different occupations.

 
Nuotrauka: Justinas Stacevičius, lrt.lt
 
Gabrielė interviews people on topics such as culture, social norms, creativity and inspiration. All these impeccable individual stories are somehow connected; they reveal a common footprint in the psyche of urban and global mythologies and the worlds of fantasy and imagination.
 
As a writer herself Gabrielė chooses quite an informal way to conduct the conversation; she prefers telling a story rather than exhausting a guest with a ton of questions. Every podcast has the same framing: it begins with a story about the guest and the guest can comment on the story pointing where fiction overtakes the reality.
 
In the end of podcast guests share a piece of advice on how to boost creativity or confess what inspires them personally and keeps on a track of creative thinking. It can come to literally anything: maybe somebody regain his/her creative energy by walking home backwards, others might practice automatic writing in the mornings or always do the dishes before beginning an important project.

Whatever works, because creativity knows no limit.
 

LRT
 
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🎧Listen to the podcast in Lithuanian🎧