Tag: Gabriele Labanauskaite

Poetry course

Posted on by Galdrama

POETRY COURSE

When talking about poetry, writer Virginia Woolf said that the purpose of a poet is to describe honestly and accurately a world that, as a possible thing, never existed for any person. Each poem, sonnet or haiku is a separate universe where all laws obey the imagination of the poet. However, how to open the gates to those unknown worlds with the help of words, rhyme, rhythm, language tools alone?

In this course, Assoc. Dr. Gabrielė Labanauskaitė will help tame poetry to those who are afraid of it, and will introduce those who are already skilled to the techniques and intricacies of this literary genre. Aušra Kaziliūnaitė, the author of 6 poetry books, whose work has received numerous national and international awards, will lead one of the course sessions.

Lenght: 21 academic hours

IN THIS COURSE:

  • you will open the door of poetry, which will give space for creativity to spread and help you in difficult moments of life;
  • you will get to know the diversity of poetry genres and the uniqueness of each of them;
  • you will play in rhyme and rhythm;
  • you will get to know the fastidious Miss Metaphor and other decorations of speech better;
  • you will test the methods of creating poetry and develop your writing skills;
  • you will create, read and generally increase your understanding of what poetry is;
  • at the end of the course you will receive personal feedback about your creation;
  • if you miss the session, you will be able to view the video material;
  • you will expand the circle of creative like-minded people.

UNIQUENESS:

What makes this creative writing course different from other similar courses?

  • this is the only poetry writing course in Lithuania so far;
  • the course program is special in its completeness and in-depth study of the material, enriched with many practical exercises and advice;
  • you will create together in a small group;
  • the course is playfully led by the poet and playwright Gabrielė Labanauskaitė, and feedback will be provided by the poet Aušra Kaziliūnaitė, who has published six books of poetry.

FEEDBACK: 

I would describe this first poetry course as very comprehensive. It was very interesting and meaningful to get acquainted with the structures, formulas, and possibilities of creating poetry, while at the same time allowing to feel the absence of those boundaries. Inventive tasks, as always, awakened creativity, encouraged independent work, and perfectly filled our time with poetry. And also the feedback that Aušra Kaziliūnaitė gave us in the last lecture was extremely interesting and rich in all senses. – Sandra Sparnaitiene

During this course, I received structured, clearly, and interestingly conveyed knowledge about poetry, different styles and genres. Gabriele also always provides tools that help you create and enable you to work independently. I am so grateful for all the fellowship, inspiration, support, and encouragement to move along my path. During these trainings, it was a great joy to hear the feedback of writer, teacher, poet Aušra Kaziliūnaitė about my work and that of other training participants. Such support helps a lot and encourages me to feel more confident in creating poetry. – Justina Butkutė

VIDEO:

https://youtu.be/Whws91inaDM

FAQ

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❓ You can know the dates of the recent courses by e-mail → [email protected] or social media ➡ IŠ TYLOS

How to write a novel?

Posted on by Galdrama

HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL

You’ve wanted to write a novel for a long time, but…
You have already started.
You promised so many times to work on a larger piece, but…
You’ve been planning to write a novel for so long that it’s time to push all BUT aside! Let’s start writing a novel together.

During the course, in a disciplined way, working individually and in groups, knowledge about writing a larger work and the necessary skills will be deepened.

This course is for those who are determined to write up to 30 pages during the course. scope work, which can then be independently extended. The course will also be useful for those who are halfway through writing a piece, but when faced with a creative block or laziness, they can no longer continue writing.

Course duration: 32 academic hours

UNIQUENESS:
This course is special in that:
– takes place in a small group;
– is consistent and long-lasting, lasting 3 months;
– a disciplined habit of writing is developed;
– getting acquainted with the literature intended for writing a novel, the basics of character creation and structure;
– writes a lot and consistently;
– provides feedback on the idea and plan of the novel and notes up to 30 pages. volume for the text of the novel;
– at the end of the course, you will receive personal feedback about your work;
– participants who attend at least 50% of classes will receive a diploma;
– if you miss the session, you will be able to view the video material;

RECOMMENDATION:
Those who have already written one or more large-scale works and are looking for feedback are recommended to apply for individual consultations or wait for the novel improvement and content editing course.

FAQ

The dates of the courses can be found by e-mail → [email protected] or in social media ➡ IŠ TYLOS

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

Posted on by Martyna

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]

The Basics of Creative Writing

Posted on by Martyna

THE BASICS OF CREATIVE WRITING

 

Everyone has a right to write despite the sex, age or occupation. So, creative writing courses are designed for anybody, who seek to develop, renew or improve writing skills. It is pretty hard to describe a term of creative writing, because the picture does not fir the frame. Creative writing has many techniques, styles that can be combained and harnessed to help the writer express himself. The primal purpose of these courses is a creativity-oriented development of daily writing habit. No matter where the muses hide, where the inspiration lays.

yannick-pulverPhotography: Yannick Pulver
Gabrielė Labanauskaitė seeks to introduce the group to the basics of creative writing, focusing on the creativity and search for the personal style.

Duration: 21 academic hour

OBJECTIVES:

      • to explore the basics of creative writing;
      • to develop a habit of everyday writing exercises to cultivate the fantasy and imagination;
      • to discover a variety of genres, styles and try writing skills in each of them to find out the best fit;
      • to get to know more about the means of expression making a story-telling interesting and captivating;
      • to establish a relationship with other creative people and widen the circle of like-minded ones;
      • to discuss the information received and share pieces of creative work within the group.

 

QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED:

      • is it possible to learn to write?
      • how to know if I have what it takes to become a person, who writes?
      • how to make peace with the inner critics and harness their energy for work?
      • how to cultivate imagination?
      • what are the elements of a good story?
      • how to employ the theory into everyday life practice?

 

PROGRAMME OF THE COURSE:

      • introduction, determination of upcoming challenges and possibilities, discussion, creative writing tasks and exercises;
      • methods of cultivating imagination, recognition of the inner critic, creative writing tasks and exercises;
      • development of style, discussion about prefered genres, styles, creative writing tasks and exercises;
      • introduction of the main story-telling elements, development of the story;
      • tips and discussion about the skills and habits helping to establish a tradition of casual writing, creative writing tasks and exercises;
      • course summary, discussion.

 

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

Gondii Syndrome

Posted on by Martyna

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

Posted on by Martyna

“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

Posted on by Martyna

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

Posted on by Martyna

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

Posted on by Martyna

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