Choreography Brandon Lagaert| Costumes Kristina Čyžiūtė| Music Felix Machtelinckx | Lights Vladimiras Šerstabojevas | Dancers Arno Verbruggen (Belgium), Hayleigh Smillie (Scotland), Hueng Won Lee (South Korea), Julija Mintautė (Lithuania), Laura Cornejo (Brasil), Lin van Kaam (Norway), Marine Fernandez (France), Matthew Livingston (USA), Natsuho Matsumoto (Japan), Thibault Rousselet (France)

Premiere 29 November 2019, Kaunas

Doggy Rugburn is a parallel world that resembles ours but where time is elongated and stretched out. It’s inhabited by a group of beings called “The Rugburners” that have the ability to shape shift using their eccentric bodies. Just like us they struggle with the fixation of the ownership of objects and the never-ending fight for territory.

Brandon Lagaert (1992, Ghent, BE) studied acting at SKI in Ghent and enrolled in the Contemporary Dance Education of the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp in 2012. The following year, he joined Peeping Tom for the production of Vader. He is currently also part of the cast of Moeder and Kind. Apart from working with Peeping Tom, he collaborates with a wide array of artists, for example with L’école de Théâtre Physique de Strasbourg, where he carries out experiments with film. He has also been working on developing himself as an all-round artist in different disciplines, including theatre, dance, film, directing and more.

Aura is an international dance company with dancers from different countries. The troupe is actively developing joint projects with artists from different genres, performing all around the world. During theatre‘s existence, it created and shaped the "face" of Lithuanian contemporary dance. Aura and International Dance Festival are an integral part of the culture and art of both Kaunas city and the Republic of Lithuania.

Choreography Birutė Letukaitė | Costumes Kristina Čyžiūtė-Svirskienė| Music Improvisational music band "Kaunas Zoo" | Lights Vladimiras Šerstabojevas | Dancers Arno Verbruggen (Belgium), Hayleigh Smillie (Scotland), Hueng Won Lee (South Korea), Julija Mintautė (Lithuania), Laura Cornejo (Brasil), Lin van Kaam (Norway), Marine Fernandez (France), Matthew Livingston (USA), Natsuho Matsumoto (Japan) | Video Marius Paplauskas

Premiere 9 May 2019, Vilnius

Performance of dance and live music, which analyzes the topics of beauty, fashion cults, the aim of luxury and demonstrates the vanity which living with “masks” brings forth.

Modern dance studio founded by Birutė Letukaitė several decades ago in 1995 was established as Kaunas city dance theatre “Aura” and is still lead by her. Among the most important awards of the theatre director and choreographer Birutė Letukaitė are two "Golden Scene Crosses", the Government Culture and Art Award, and many others. On the eve of the festival, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania awarded Birutė Letukaitė for outstanding contribution and special merits to Lithuanian culture and art with the Honorary Sign "Get Your Light and Believe".

Aura is an international dance company with dancers from different countries. The troupe is actively developing joint projects with artists from different genres, performing all around the world. During theatre‘s existence, it created and shaped the "face" of Lithuanian contemporary dance. "Aura" and International Dance Festival are an integral part of the culture and art of both Kaunas city and the Republic of Lithuania.

Choreography Christine Bonansea (Germany/USA) | Costumes Kristina Čyžiūtė-Svirskienė, Christine Bonansea | Music Nicole Carroll | Graphic programming Yoann Trellu | Light design Asier Solana | Dancers Arno Verbruggen (Belgium), Julija Mintautė (Lithuania), Laura Cornejo (Brasil), Lin van Kaam (Norway), Marine Fernandez (France), Matthew Livingston (USA), Natsuho Matsumoto (Japan)

Premiere 3 October 2019, Kaunas, International Dance Festival AURA 29

What is to be human? How do we simultaneously exist as individual beings, and as one entity? How do we perceive humanity? We are all conditioned by our history, environment, education. Our perceptions are codified! But beyond this, we have also the possibility to reassess our reality.

OH-2 is a multimedia work created in collaboration with the visual artist Yoann Trellu and the composer Nicole Carroll. This work is the second part of the OH Project series that enquires human conditioned reality, following OnlyHuman solo piece.

Christine Bonansea Saulut is a US and European dancer and choreographer with 17 years of international experience in motion writing, directing / choreography and performing. She creates performances, installations and films. Since 2010 she is the artistic director of the troupe Christine Bonansea. After studying modern literature at the Sorbonne University in Paris, she mentions writers and philosophers as her main inspirations.

Aura is an international dance company with dancers from different countries. The troupe is actively developing joint projects with artists from different genres, performing all around the world. During theatre‘s existence, it created and shaped the "face" of Lithuanian contemporary dance. Aura and International Dance Festival are an integral part of the culture and art of both Kaunas city and the Republic of Lithuania.

Choreography Birutė Letukaitė | Music Zan Hoffman (USA) | Vocal Zan Hoffman (USA) | Costumes Olesė Kekienė | Dancers Arno Verbruggen (Belgium), Hayleigh Smillie (Scotland), Hueng Won Lee (South Korea), Julija Mintautė (Lithuania), Laura Cornejo (Brasil), Lin van Kaam (Norway), Marine Fernandez (France), Matthew Livingston (USA), Natsuho Matsumoto (Japan)

Premiere 16 August 2019, Kaunas region museum, Raudondvaris

An artist, sculptor, author, director and entertainment lion, Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech is one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. Exhibitionists and eccentrics, significant for his surrealistic works. Salvador Dalí was famous for his ability to create the most obscure and intriguing paintings of all times. Perspective and depth, following the artist’s footsteps, leave the real world and awaken the imagination.

The performance is dedicated to the works of this exceptional artist at the Kaunas District Museum. All performers and creators have been looking for performance inspiration in his works. Music creator and performer Zan Hoffman is reborn in the character of the maestro, and Zigmas Kalesinskas, the director of the Kaunas District Museum, unexpectedly joins him.

Modern dance studio founded by Birutė Letukaitė several decades ago in 1995 was established as Kaunas city dance theatre “Aura” and is still lead by her. Among the most important awards of the theatre director and choreographer Birutė Letukaitė are two "Golden Scene Crosses", the Government Culture and Art Award, and many others. On the eve of the festival, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania awarded Birutė Letukaitė for outstanding contribution and special merits to Lithuanian culture and art with the Honorary Sign "Get Your Light and Believe".

Aura is an international dance company with dancers from different countries. The troupe is actively developing joint projects with artists from different genres, performing all around the world. During theatre‘s existence, it created and shaped the "face" of Lithuanian contemporary dance. "Aura" and International Dance Festival are an integral part of the culture and art of both Kaunas city and the Republic of Lithuania.

Concept, choreography, performing Austėja Vilkaitytė

Premiere September 2019, AUTARKIA project space during Gallery weekend festival, Vilnius

INDIFFERENCE is a new performance series by Austėja Vilkaitytė connected to the second part of SENSATIONS project - External sensations.

Dancer is calling new forces in the abandoned and re-opened loft spaces – powers of swamp, 90s pop stars, folklore, vulnerability, passion, mafia, anarchy, and sensuality. Surrounded by electronic snakes and fields of stinging nettles, performer applies dramatic cursing ritual, calls the concrete walls and mediates their stories. She’s mourning the troubled ones, the powerless ones and swearing the patterns - opening the ephemeral performance night for anthropomorphic beings to enter.

External sensation is a second part of SENSATIONS – an ongoing project that Austėja Vilkaitytė been busy with since 2014. External sensations analysis topics, such as communication with the object and the exterior, darkness, fiction, animation of the ‘thing’, ritualistic practice. SENSATIONS project brings on stage suburban lifestyle, solitude, sensuality and feminism. Empowering the new alter ego prototype during performance act, braking through, liberating, queering, healing.

Austėja Vilkaitytė (was born in 1985, Lithuania) graduated from Iceland Academy of the Arts, BA in Contemporary Dance. She studied dance at SEAD, Austria and TEAK, Finland. Now Austėja is pursuing MA in Choreography specialized on New Performative Practice at DOCH university, Sweden. Her work was shown at visual arts institutions as well as dance and theater platforms in Lithuania and abroad. A. Vilkaitytė received Young Artist Award by Ministry of Culture in Lithuania in 2016.

Austėja works in the fields of dance, choreography and performance. Her interests are new forms of dance, choreography, hybrid performativity, conquering both visual arts institutions and dance venues, creating site-specific places. She finds black box and theater as a phenomenon, a performance, a body and container of energies and history to be communicated with and researched. In her artistic practice, Austėja approaches New Eastern European identity, feminism, dance history, personal archive and memory, also today’s consumerism from perspective of the ancient, emotions, ‘expressionistic’ dance.

Choreographer Birutė Banevičiūtė | Dancer Giedrė Subotinaitė | Composer Rasa Dikčienė | Costume design Rūta Biliūnaitė | Light design Aurelijus Davidavičius

Supported by Lithuanian Council for Culture

Interactive dance performance-installation for children of 6–18 months

Premiere 2019, Arts Printing House (Vilnius)

Full of secrets, coloured and soft meadow in which children together with the dancer are engaged to seek adventure and look for treasures, experience joy of discovery and communication, share their impressions and emotions. The form of performance-installation allows children to explore dance and environment without limitations in time needed to get involved.

Dansema Dance Theatre, founded in 2007 by the initiative of current artistic director, choreographer Birutė Banevičiūtė, was the first to produce professional dance performances for young audience in Lithuania. Since 2009 theatre is a member of ASSITEJ Lithuania. Dansema has presented its production for children in 25 countries all over the world. Dansema performances are nominated and awarded by the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture as the best performance for children of the year.

Idea and choreography Birutė Banevičiūtė | Choreography and dance Mantas Stabačinskas / Marius Pinigis | Composer Jurgita Mieželytė | Costumes and scenography design Medilė Šiaulytytė | Light design Aurelijus Davidavičius

Supported by: Lithuanian Council for Culture, Vilnius city, Kaunas city
Partners: Kaunas city chamber theatre, Kaunas 2022, Arts Printing House

Interactive dance performance-installation for children of 6–18 months

Premiere 2019, Kaunas Chamber Theatre (Kaunas)

Performance-musical action is inspired by the idea of the clock and movement of its parts - arrows, gears, alarm. Movement and sound surprises which appear from the dancers costume invite toddlers to become participants of the performance, co-authors of movement and music. Exploring musical instruments used by dancer babies will create musical accompaniment for the performance. This is the first performance of such form for babies in Lithuania.

Dansema Dance Theatre, founded in 2007 by the initiative of current artistic director, choreographer Birutė Banevičiūtė, was the first to produce professional dance performances for young audience in Lithuania. Since 2009 theatre is a member of ASSITEJ Lithuania. Dansema has presented its production for children in 25 countries all over the world. Dansema performances are nominated and awarded by the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture as the best performance for children of the year.

Idea Grėtė Šmitaitė, Sunayana Shetty, Vincenz Kokot | Choreography Grėtė Šmitaitė, Sunayana Shetty | Music Vincenz Kokot | Light design Linas Kutavičius | Set design Jurgis Šmitas | Supervision Dovilė Gasiūnaitė | Graphic design Monika Šiliūnaitė | Communication Vaida Stepanovaitė

Supported by Lithuanian Council for Culture; Arts Printing House; International Residency Programme; Kaunas Fortress Park
Thanks to Tanzfabrik Berlin; I.D.R.A. Milan

Site-specific dance performance for 7 viewers

Premiere 12, 13 October 2019, Kaunas Fort IV (Lithuania)

Shy palms – a piece for 7 viewers that invites one to stay in proximity to the spaces of Fort IV of Kaunas, and take 2000 steps through it.

Physical realities of Fort IV - that is cold and wet - are brought to breathe through the three performers: dancers Grėtė Šmitaitė, Sunayana Shetty and musician Vincenz Kokot. Relying on oneself yet staying in constant exchange, they charge and support one another into a momentum that spins, settles and spreads again, offering warmth to the heavy-structured buildings, tunnels and meadows.

Before making the piece (in 2018-2019) Kaunas Fort IV was opened to the public of Kaunas a few years back, though was still outside of the topography of the city at the time. Site-specific performance ‘Shy palms’ listens into the historical past of this object of war, though does not aim to reconstruct it. Qualities of the space such as coldness, wetness, toughness, desolation and loneliness are being focused on. That provokes one to work with bodies that are fragile and encourages to make a choreography for humans that are in need of one another.

Grėtė Šmitaitė (LT/DE) - performer, choreographer, alumni of HZT Berlin ‘Dance. Context. Choreography’. Grėtė collaborates with choreographers Anna Aristarkhova, Lyllie Rouvière, Sunayana Shetty, Min Tanaka, Hanna Kritten Tangsoo, Doris Uhlich.

Sunayana Shetty (IND/DE) is a dancer/choreographer based in Berlin. She completed her Bachelor's in Dance and Choreography from the Hochsculübergreifendes Zentrum Tanz Berlin. She has collaborated with choreographers Cécile Bally, Grėtė Šmitaitė, Hanna Kritten Tangsoo, Katherine Evans, Renen Itzhaki, Sandhya Daegman, Miriam Kongstad and Lyllie Rouvière.

Vincenz Kokot (DE) is a musician and author based in Berlin. He is interested in both songwriting and improvised music and has initiated several projects, such as free-folk band ‘my sister grenadine’ and soundscape collective ‘jandl’. In 2015 his first book of poetry was published. He holds an MA in Cultural Sciences and Anthropology and works at contemporary dance center Tanzfabrik Berlin.

Idea, performance Grėtė Šmitaitė | Supervision Karl Saks, Jeanine Durning | Style design Alissa Šnaider | Light design Oliver Kulpsoo | Coaching for health maintenance Raminta Lygutienė

Co-production Sõltumatu Tantsu Lava Tallinn

Supported by Lithuanian Council for Culture, Estonian Cultural Endowment
Thanks to Arts Printing house, Pardimäe Lokaal, Luna Park Exchange Athens

Premiere 8 February 2019, Sõltumatu Tantsu Lava Tallinn

The solo approaches crying as a need to make the performer’s body burst into tears, physical energy and movement. Through crying a common release in the social situation of performance is being created. Structures and daily actions facilitate a frame in which the dynamics and nuanced changes in the crying of the performer invite the audience to doubt the ‘real’ and the ‘fake’, fall into getting manipulated and enjoy it, or question it, resist it.

Grėtė Šmitaitė (LT/DE) - performer, choreographer, HZT Berlin BA ‘Dance. Context. Choreography’ 2014-2017 alumni, danceWEB scholarship 2017 recipient.

Grėtė is part of ‘Suddenly’ collective. Together with Hanna Kritten Tangsoo sheco-choreographed ‘Limitation Piece 2’ for ‘Suddenly’ collective (premiere: ‘Uferstudios’, ‘Tanzfabrik’ Berlin, 2018).

2017-2019 Grėtė developed a solo ‘What do I cry for?’ (premiere: ‘Sõltumatu TantsuLava’ Tallinn, 2019).

2018-2019 together with Sunayana Shetty (IND/DE) Šmitaitė created ‘Shy palms’, site-specific performance for 7 viewers in Kaunas Fort IV.

As a dancer Šmitaitė has collaborated with choreographers Anna Aristarkhova, (‘Lust’, ‘Obnimashki’, ‘Zweites Stück’, ‘Rinzekette’), Lyllie Rouviere (‘Esprit’), Sunayana Shetty (‘easy’), Min Tanaka (‘A body’), Hanna Kritten Tangsoo (‘Blue blueme’), Doris Uhlich (‘Habitat’, ‘Seismic Session’, ‘More than Naked’).

Director Ieva Jackevičiūtė | Performers Saulė Sakalauskaitė, Greta Šepliakovaitė, Marius Gotbergas, Raimondas Klezys/Mantas Bendžius | Costume and set design Indrė Pačėsaitė | Video artist Tautvydas Rasiulis

Premiere 1 September 2019, Kaunas City Chamber Theatre

7 CIRCLES is a musical movement performance-ritual for children over 3 and their parents. With live authentic Lithuanian music playing in the background, the audience joins the creators of the performance for meditative rituals and games.

7 CIRCLES is a journey across 7 different colours, sounds, qualities, moods and rituals. It is fun to join actors and experience how simple everyday rituals, games, songs and fairy-tales can become shared extraordinary experiences.

A fun ritual and game are created in this performance through the combination of contemporary and folk dance, video animation, game with objects, authentic instruments and life polyphonic singing. Children and adults are involved into music, movement and nice entertaining activities which together become a contemporary therapy of shared good emotions and harmony.

The idea of the performance was born out of the search for one’s authentic roots and thus discovery that the Lithuanian folklore has a lot of connections with the cultures around the entire world. Rituals through music and dance are shared by all nations, thus leading to realisation that we are all citizens of the same world.

Ieva Jackevičiūtė is an actress, dancer, educator and director. The experience accumulated during her professional career has guided her towards different directions of artistic expression and educational practices.

During her 17-year-long career as an educator, she worked with both adults and children. She taught the disciplines of dance, theatre, improvisation, introduction to art, didactics, movement theatre in Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences, Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, project activities, in pre-school education institutions and other initiatives. In cooperation with the Education Development Centre, she prepared programmes to teach introduction to art and cinema production.

Her artistic expression deals with the contemporary dance, performance in cinema and television and direction. She has developed dozens of roles in contemporary dance performances in collaboration with choreographers like Andželika Cholina, Birutė Letukaitė, Aira Naginevičiūtė, Vytis Jankauskas, Gytis Ivanauskas, Austėja Vilkaitytė, etc. Recently, her artistic expression is mostly concerned with directing. A few years ago, she debuted as a director of performances for babies, children and youth.

Choreography, performing Lukas Karvelis | Music Adrian Crespo Barba

Premiere 11 May 2019, New Baltic Dance festival (Lithuania)

Blank Spots is a solo performance that deals with personal and collective identities. The performance consists of two parts which both challenge and complement each other. The first part features my alter ego Trisha which is a vulgar, extravagant individual constantly (re)inventing itself. Meanwhile, the second part inspired by Lithuanian folk culture and archetypes scrutinizes the collective identity often believed to be "given". To what extent do I invent myself or to what extent am I a mere being – a product of my individual circumstances and collective context?

Lithuanian young generation artist Lukas Karvelis has already gained huge attention for his sensitive, vulnerable, daring performances and charismatic personality. His dance is a unique and strongly peculiar phenomenon that already has elaborated individual style. He looks for inspiration in a folk and pop cultures, environment and mostly - in himself, therefore, his first full-length performance Blank Spots is an attempt to understand oneself and its surroundings.

The background of Lukas Karvelis consists of different contemporary dance techniques, ballet training, urban dances and a touch of vogueing. All these styles come together in the dancer's research. Lukas Karvelis has a huge interest in various forms and experiments with all the advantages of interdisciplinary arts, therefore, he has already collaborated with film directors, musicians, fashion designers, and performing artists.

Idea NUEPIKO Dance Company | Choreography and dance Andrius Stakelė, Marius Paplauskas, Marius Pinigis | Music Andrius Stakelė | Lights Vladimiras Šerstabojevas

Premiere 20th and 22nd of November 2019, Kaunas

Inspired by such contemporary modus vivendi and their own burnouts, dancers and founders of dance company ‘Nuepiko’ Marius Paplauskas, Marius Pinigis and Andrius Stakele in their latest dance performance explore the phenomena of the so-called overheat. ‘Sometimes I feel burned out. What is more, a kind of burnout is taking place at a more global political and ecological scale. Humanity is very ill.’ – says Marius Pinigis, one of the authors of the dance performance.

However, the purpose of the performance is not to moralize, but rather to encourage people to ask themselves meaningful questions: ‘Though, the theme of the performance is broad and increasingly global, we do not seek to moralize. Instead, we try to concentrate on ourselves and to ask ourselves the question: “where do I burn myself?” By constantly confronting ourselves with this question, we keep uncovering creative possibilities to interpret the phenomena of overheat through movement. Also, it has a high impact on our daily lives, habits, behaviours, values, work ethics, relationship, both, on personal and team levels. So, our new performance is, more likely, a self-reflection, which hopefully will become a tool for us – performers and the audience – to rethink the phenomena of overheat more consciously.’ Therefore, it is a dance performance for anyone who has ever been burned out or is unable to remain indifferent to the fires of the environment.

NUEPIKO is a Kaunas (Lithuania) based dance company founded by three experienced dancers - Andrius Stakele, Marius Paplauskas, Marius Pinigis. Started from the dance performance "(g)round zero" in 2016, the company of three dancers decided to continue their collaboration in more consolidated artistic path. Stage performances, music, video art, education through movement and dance are the pieces which brought together create an artistic unit NUEPIKO.

Production Šeiko Dance Company | Choreographer Palle Granhøj in cooperation with the dancers | Dancers Darius Berulis, Dovilė Binkauskaitė, Niels Claes, Mantas Černeckas, Marija Ivaškevičiūtė, Aušra Krasauskaitė, Marius Pinigis, Gintarė Marija Ščavinskaitė, Erikas Žilaitis | Musicians Klaipeda cello octet: Mindaugas Bačkus, Arnas Kmieliauskas, Marius Sakavičius, Karolis Vaičiulis and invited musicians | Music based on Maurice Ravel’s „Boléro” | Sound director Kastytis Narmontas | Arrangement James Barralet | Assistant Oksana Griaznova

Co-producers Granhøj Dans (DK), Šeiko Dance Company, International Klaipėda Cello Festival and Competition

Partners Klaipeda Concert Hall

Supported by Klaipėda city Municipality, Lithuanian Council for Culture, Nordic Council of Ministers

Premiere 7 May 2019 at International Klaipėda Cello Festival and Competition

The idea of Mindaugas Bačkus, the initiator of International Klaipėda Cello Festival and Competition, to perform one of the most famous orchestral works “Boléro” by French composer Maurice Ravel only with cellos, has transformed to a unique dance and live music performance thanks to the long-standing cooperation with Šeiko Dance Company. Renown Danish choreographer Palle Granhøj has been invited to create choreography for the performance. His choreographic compositions list a number of pieces, combining classical music & contemporary dance, such as “Rite of Spring” (I. Stravinsky), “2men2mahler” and “Men & Mahler” on G. Mahler’s music, etc.

In “Boléro – extended” Granhøj employs his obstruction technique, which reduces movement and creates a specific repetitive motion for the dancers, based on the rhythm of Ravel’s Boléro. The music, performed by one to eight cellos throughout the piece, gets deconstructed and therefore sounds quite unexpected and modern. The stage setting here is no less surprising: an ordinary situation with musicians in the orchestra pit and dancers on stage appears to be turned upside down…

Klaipeda cello octet is an ensemble created from Klaipėda cello quartet, which debuted at the Klaipėda Cello Festival in 2017. Then together with Šeiko Dance Company collective presented dance and music performance “Seasons”, after which another cello and dance project – “My Peter Pan” – has followed. Mindaugas Bačkus is the one who initiated formation of cello ensembles. He is one of the most intensively performing cello artists and artistic director of Klaipėda Chamber Orchestra, whose musical interests are remarkably vast: from baroque to modern opuses, from traditional cello sound to experiments and participation in theatre projects.

Šeiko Dance Company – dance professionals working in the contemporary dance field creating dance and music performances, immersive theatre, site-specific performances, promenade performances, dance education projects and theatre laboratories. The highest professional theatre scene awards winners, who have been working as a company in Klaipėda for six years and has expanded their geography to many countries abroad. It already toured in USA, Germany, Belgium, Czech Republic, Norway, Denmark, Russia, China, Iceland, Ukraine, Israel, Bulgaria, etc. Artistic director of the company – choreographer Agnija Šeiko is recognizable for her interdisciplinary approach, distinctive aesthetics, sensitive social topics and the variety of forms.

Granhøj Dans is an internationally acknowledged dance company based in Denmark. The productions of Granhøj Dans are created by the company's artistic director and choreographer Palle Granhøj, in close co-operation with the dancers. The starting point of every production is the Obstruction Technique developed by P. Granhøj, and which has made possible the creation of about 36 original works in the last 30 years. Based on the above-named working method, the choreographer reshapes the movements of the performers by means of hindering actions, revealing inner layers of their personality in the process, thus turning the spotlight on human condition. Rather than showing dancers and choreographies on stage, Palle Granhøj wants to present men and women as they are: genuine, alive - and complex. The works of Palle Granhøj has so far been presented in 49 different countries.

Production Šeiko Dance Company | Director Agnija Šeiko | Choreography Agnija Šeiko, Inga Kuznecova | Dancers Inga Kuznecova, Gintarė Marija Ščavinskaitė, Oksana Griaznova, Marija Ivaškevičiūtė, Dovilė Binkauskaitė, Mantas Černeckas, Niels Claes, Erikas Žilaitis, Evgeniy Kalachov | Music Kristijonas Lučinskas, Benas Šarka and „AOUM“ (Edmundas Gylys, Vladimir Konstantinov, Karina Novikova, Donatas Bielkauskas, Larion Dyakov) | Texts Sondra Simana | Costumes Sandra Straukaitė | Producer Vilija Bartašiūtė

Historical tour-dance performance

Premiere April 2019

Drifted is a historical tour-dance performance. It is a poetic story about the villages of Neringa and interesting people who inhabited or visited them for a short period of time. Just like the villages in Neringa, their stories were covered by the sands swirling in the wind. Through the laconic languages of movement, music and voice, the performance shall convey the destinies of people who have lived here throughout the centuries of the ever-changing landscape. The plot of the performance features mysterious fragments: villages that disappeared, songs by Liudvikas Rėza, the Post Road Prussia–Saint Petersburg, the gesture of Queen Louise, the existence and routine of Thomas Mann, the footprints of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, the strokes of painters from Nida Art Colony.

Drifted shall be performed on Parnidis Dune facing the panorama of Nida settlement and the pages of history which are covered for the time being. The imagery of the bodies of dancers and dunes will reflect the historical-poetic-musical story audible through headphones, thus, revealing the magical realism of the Curonian Spit.

Šeiko Dance Company – dance professionals working in the contemporary dance field creating dance and music performances, immersive theatre, site-specific performances, promenade performances, dance education projects and theatre laboratories. The highest professional theatre scene awards winners, who have been working as a company in Klaipėda for six years and has expanded their geography to many countries abroad. It already toured in USA, Germany, Belgium, Czech Republic, Norway, Denmark, Russia, China, Iceland, Ukraine, Israel, Bulgaria, etc. Artistic director of the company – choreographer Agnija Šeiko is recognizable for her interdisciplinary approach, distinctive aesthetics, sensitive social topics and the variety of forms.

Direction and choreography Ugnė Dievaitė | Direction asistant Riccardo Buscarini | Musical composition, live music VIDAL | Performers Agnija Šeiko, Marija Ivaškevičiūtė | Light Design La Cia de la Luz (Daniel Alcaraz) | Texts consultant Sondra Simana | Costumes Laura Darbutaitė| Texts Passages from diaries of the poetess Salomėja Neris

Supported by Lithuanian Council for Culture, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania, Klaipėda City Municipality, Paco Rabal

Two ages of a woman. She is 19 and also 41 years old.

That woman is Salomeja Neris, Lithuanian poetess. Born in 1904 and died in 1945, to this day she remains a controversial figure. Her short life culminated in a quick death and a moral condemnation for having supported the communist regime.

Marija and Agnija are on the stage. Marija feels that her life has just begun, that there is so much time left and so much she can do. Agnija feels that there is less and less time left to live. There are so many things she wants to do before her time limit ends. Both women coexist with Salomeja Neris, converse and cohabit the space. The bodies of Agnija and Marija communicate their nature to give way to the words of Salomeja that invite us to know her universe. The movements and the gazes are witnesses of the passage of time, the historical contexts and the places.

The physical experience, the biological rhythms are crossed by accidents. Are Salomeja, Marija and Agnija the sum of their circumstances? In what degree do we live through history and to what degree does history live through us?

The night erases the limits of time and circumstances between the three women, moving them to the present moment and making visible their flickering experiences and their vision about life, personal and collective. Revealing the existence that we all share, Flicker of the night invites us to reflect on the imprint of the historical context in our actions.

Ugnė Dievaitė is a Lithuanian choreographer and dancer based in Madrid. She has studied contemporary dance, dance improvisation techniques and dance movement therapy in Lithuania and with teachers from Europe, United States and Russia. She has graduated in Psychology at Vytautas Magnus University and has a master’s degree in health psychology.

She has collaborated with various dance companies and artists: Camille Hanson dance company (USA), Poliana Lima (Brazil), Babirusa danza dance company, Beatriz Palenzuela, Koke Armero (Spain), Sharon Fridman (Izrael), ARCO collective (Great Britain), Aura, Vytis Jankauskas, Aira Naginaviciute (Lithuania), etc. Ugne became known internationally in 2014 when her image got on the cover of one of the world's biggest dance fairs Tanzmesse.

Many works of Ugne have received awards. In 2012 together with Poliana Lima Ugne has created Es como ver nubes, a piece that has been awarded five times and received such awards as Public Award (Certamen coreográfico de Madrid XXVI), I-st prize award for the best choreogrpahy (Vila-real en Dansa II), II-nd prize award (Certamen DeUnaPieza V). Their next work Flesh (2014) is the I-st prize award winner at Feedback festival (Madrid). Ugne’s solo work Uninvited presence (2013) received the Jury award at the Choreography contest of Tetuán (Madrid). Her next solo piece Female (2015) is the winner of three awards, among which the I-st prize award for the best choreography (choreography contest Distrito de Tetuán, 2017), and also has got to the finals at the contest XX MASDANZA (Canary Islands). Her latest work Anhelo (2016), created in collaboration with Koke Armero, is the finalist of Madrid Choreographic contest XXIX and was awarded with a scholarship for DanceWEB 2016 program in the frame of Impulstanz festival (Austria, Vienna).

Her works were shown at theaters and festivals like Edinburgh Fringe'16, Dance Base (Ireland), Aerowaves Spring Forward, Mercat de les Flors (Barcelona), Teatros del Canal (Madrid), Baila España, Schwankhalle Bremen (Germany), Korzo theater (Netherlands), New Baltic dance, Kultūros fabrikas, Arts Printing House (Lithuania), Tripspace (UK), Madrid en Danza XVIII, Cadiz en Danza XV, Dansa Valencia, Carme Teatre, Conde Duque (Spain) etc.

Šeiko Dance Company – dance professionals working in the contemporary dance field creating dance and music performances, immersive theatre, site-specific performances, promenade performances, dance education projects and theatre laboratories. The highest professional theatre scene awards winners, who have been working as a company in Klaipėda for six years and has expanded their geography to many countries abroad. It already toured in USA, Germany, Belgium, Czech Republic, Norway, Denmark, Russia, China, Iceland, Ukraine, Israel, Bulgaria, etc. Artistic director of the company – choreographer Agnija Šeiko is recognizable for her interdisciplinary approach, distinctive aesthetics, sensitive social topics and the variety of forms.

Concept, choreography, lights, costumes Dalija Acin Thelander | Music Qillannguaq Q Berthelsen | Installation / stage design Linas Kutavicius / Lightforms and Dalija Acin Thelander | Performed by Šeiko dance company: Agnija Šeiko, Marija Ivaškevičiūtė, Inga Kuznecova, Oksana Griaznova, Mantas Černeckas, Erikas Žilaitis | Programing Justas Bø | Producer Vilija Bartašiūtė

Co-production Šeiko Dance Company and Dalija Acin Thelander

Durational performance - installation for babies 0-12 months

Premiere 18 April 2019, Klaipėda

Lumi is conceived as a surreal, celestial-like, minimalistic performance/installation. It invites its audience to wander and explore the movement of lights and dancers, to drift among luminous objects, to surrender to curious sensations.

Lumi explores the possibilities of an event-world rather than an object world - something more dynamic and relatively unpredictable. It aims at diverse sensory experiences and a heightened sensitivity towards the immediate physicality of the world by interlacing movement, dance, music, visual art and light design. The performance/installation affirms the idea of place as sensed, place as sensation - space as audile-tactile or kinaesthetic sensory universe in which proprioception is key.

During the performance the audience is free to move, enjoy multiple perspectives, explore, be active and/or relax. Furthermore, in order to respect the individual needs of both babies and adults, as well as the time needed to constitute the experience, the audience is invited to enjoy the installation upon their personal needs - to arrive at the time which suits them the best and stay as long as they like to, within the 3 hours running time.

Essential for the concept is notion of audience's agency in correlation with multi-directional interaction of the senses and sensuous interrelationship of body-mind-environment. Safe and stimulating performance environments is conceived to generate an interrelational ecology, providing unique conditions for a wide variety of interchange and communication. The installation environment is designed to challenge conventional conception of aesthetics for babies by proposing to it’s audience out of ordinary experience and ambience.

Dalija Acin Thelander is a choreographer and a cultural worker based in Stockholm. The focus of her current artistic research and creation are performances for babies.

Her work for the youngest audience concerns the exploration of the choreographic practices which focuses on heightened immediacy and immersion of the audience, aiming for a multi-modal and affective experience. She is interested in the exploration of the synergy of choreography and installation art and their capacities for activation of the audience. Her performances enable the youngest audience to experience performing arts from multi-perspective, addressing their kinaesthetic sense as well as ‘near’ and ‘distant’ senses. She perceives the spectators as a co-creators of event and therefore their experience and responses as a part of the aesthetic of the performance.

Šeiko Dance Company – dance professionals working in the contemporary dance field creating dance and music performances, immersive theatre, site-specific performances, promenade performances, dance education projects and theatre laboratories. The highest professional theatre scene awards winners, who have been working as a company in Klaipėda for six years and has expanded their geography to many countries abroad. It already toured in USA, Germany, Belgium, Czech Republic, Norway, Denmark, Russia, China, Iceland, Ukraine, Israel, Bulgaria, etc. Artistic director of the company – choreographer Agnija Šeiko is recognizable for her interdisciplinary approach, distinctive aesthetics, sensitive social topics and the variety of forms.

Concept, dramaturgy, direction Mindaugas Bačkus, Kenzo Kusuda, Agnija Šeiko | Music based on David Lang "World to come" | Performers Mindaugas Bačkus, Kenzo Kusuda | Light design Justas Bø | Costumes Sandra Straukaitė

Co-production Šeiko Dance Company and VšĮ "Violončelių muzika"

Premiere 7 December 2019

Oneiro is a music and dance performance about the magic of being in limbo. At the centre of the performance, is World to Come, a work by David Lang, which he created after the 9/11 tragedy, when the world stood facing the great uncertainty. The creators of Oneiro were inspired not only by the profound mathematics of music, but also the name referring to being in limbo – a transitory state between the end and what is beyond.

The creators invite the audience to engage in the active experience of this temporary state, embrace it and stay in it. The name of the performance brings us to the space of the dream, while also remaining open to various interpretations. In Japanese, the parts of this word ne-iro can be interpreted as tone color or tone quality. The dream theory (from Greek óneiros – dreams, gods of dreams) is transitory state which is difficult to define. In this space, the vast cosmic ocean crashes onto the shores of the real world, and then ebbs washing away the borders of the conscious. This experience of the in-between state is experienced by each person who closes their eyes, and which they push aside once they wake up. Oneiro invites to stay in this territory with your eyes and with all of your senses open.

Based in Holland, Japanese choreographer/dancer Kenzo Kusuda reveals the poetry of the dancing body. Kusuda takes the audience to a world filled with imagination. His work is possessed of a mystic beauty that lies beyond the perception of our physical senses.

In the days he was studying economics and business management and working part-time at the fish market in Tokyo, Kusuda discovered dance as his form of expression and gained almost immediate recognition with his very personal and intense movement language.

Since moving to The Netherlands in 1999, Kusuda has created a vast series of unique and personal choreographies, profiling him as one of the most poetic choreographers in Dutch dance. Kusuda has created a lot of pieces working with “KORZO Production” in The Hague.

Kusuda's work stems from a highly original imagination and aims for a communication with his audience precisely by finding a connection with their imaginative powers.

Mindaugas Bačkus is one of the most intensively performing cello artists and artistic director of Klaipėda Chamber Orchestra, whose musical interests are remarkably vast: from baroque to modern opuses, from traditional cello sound to experiments and participation in theatre projects.

Šeiko Dance Company – dance professionals working in the contemporary dance field creating dance and music performances, immersive theatre, site-specific performances, promenade performances, dance education projects and theatre laboratories. The highest professional theatre scene awards winners, who have been working as a company in Klaipėda for six years and has expanded their geography to many countries abroad. It already toured in USA, Germany, Belgium, Czech Republic, Norway, Denmark, Russia, China, Iceland, Ukraine, Israel, Bulgaria, etc. Artistic director of the company – choreographer Agnija Šeiko is recognizable for her interdisciplinary approach, distinctive aesthetics, sensitive social topics and the variety of forms.

Choreographer Vilma Pitrinaitė | Dancers Gintarė Marija Ščavinskaitė, Oksana Griaznova, Marija Ivaškevičiūtė, Inga Kuznecova, Dovilė Binkauskaitė, Mantas Černeckas, Niels Claes | Music Andrius Kalytis, „Joy Divison“ | Light design Justas Bø | Costumes Sandra Straukaitė

Supported by Lithuanian Council for Culture, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania, Klaipėda City Municipality

Premiere 14 September 2019, Klaipėda

How does a structure occur in chaos? A wave in a sea? Self-organization and solidarity in anarchy? Spiral in a DNA helix? A tune in a bird song? Tenderness in instinct? Toothed mouth in a flower petal?

This performance is a choreographic study based on scientific search on biological systems. Imagine sand dust chaotically gyrating in the wind… The molecules do exactly the opposite. If they are “blind” in a stable state (so-called “sleepwalkers”), they start communicating with each other, acting together and forming organizational structures when in imbalance. If they were colored tennis balls, we would see them bouncing suddenly all blue, then all yellow. In biology, it is not only a rule, but a basic principle of a living system. Is a human being “asleep” in a state of stability? How much chaos, randomness, uncertainty does he allow to get into his hyper-controlled and safe life?

This choreographic structure is accidentally intertwined with Ian Curtis's inner landscape, whose epileptic seizures may have been deliberately structured by him as a form of energy in his creative work and imitated on stage.

Vilma Pitrinaitė is a Brussels-based dancer, performer and choreographer, a co-founder and art director of independent dance and theatre company “We cie”. She has started her dancing career in Kaunas dance theatre Aura, and has studied choreography at CDC Toulouse, Ex.e.r.ce at CCN Montpellier, also theatre directing at École de Théâtre National de Strasbourg. She collaborated as a dancer and actor with companies such as Zampa, François Verret, Philippe Grandrieux, Karim Bel Kacem, Hubert Colas, Vincent Thomasset, Mossoux-Bonté, Dame de Pic. Now, she mainly works on on her own projects based on research and interdisciplinarity, primitive and novelty dances, internet culture codes. The first project by “We cie” was staged at festival JT14, Théâtre de la Cité Internationale, Paris and festival Premières, Maillon, Strasbourg. Her solo “Miss Lithuania” was presented in Aerowaves Spring Forward festival and nominated as the best act of the season in Confluences theatre, Paris, toured around Europe and in USA.

In 2016 she returned to “Aura” as a choreographer of a dance piece “Pandora”. Recently Vilma presented ”Somaholidays”, which was nominated for the highest Lithuanian Golden Cross Award '19 and continue touring in Lithuania, Izrael and Belgium. Performance – duet “MATCH” with Emilie Gastineau (USA), was premiered in “Brussels dance!” festival in March 2019.

Šeiko Dance Company – dance professionals working in the contemporary dance field creating dance and music performances, immersive theatre, site-specific performances, promenade performances, dance education projects and theatre laboratories. The highest professional theatre scene awards winners, who have been working as a company in Klaipėda for six years and has expanded their geography to many countries abroad. It already toured in USA, Germany, Belgium, Czech Republic, Norway, Denmark, Russia, China, Iceland, Ukraine, Israel, Bulgaria, etc. Artistic director of the company – choreographer Agnija Šeiko is recognizable for her interdisciplinary approach, distinctive aesthetics, sensitive social topics and the variety of forms.

Director Monika Klimaitė | Choreographer Agnija Šeiko | Script Gabrielė Labanauskaitė | Costumes, set design Giedrė Brazytė | Music Andrius Kairys | Light design Povilas Laurinaitis | Actors Nijolė Sabulytė, Jonas Baranauskas | Dancers Darius Berulis, Dovilė Binkauskaitė, Niels Claes, Mantas Černeckas, Oksana Griaznova, Marija Ivaškevičiūtė, Evgeniy Kalachov, Inga Kuznecova, Gintarė Marija Ščavinskaitė

Recommended 10+

Premiere 18 October 2019, Klaipėda

An immersive performance Who The F**k Is Alice? is an event combining the elements of the physical theatre, movements and words. It is a dramatization of the original novel by Louis Carroll by adapting it to both a macabre and contemporary event that engages the audience and which is developed not only for observation, but participation as well. During this performance, actors merge with the dancers, the dancers merge with the music played by a DJ, and the music in its turn merges with the kingdom of crooked mirrors. The guests and participants of this kingdom are the audience members who have an opportunity to experience this occasionally surreal world approached through an entertaining format

Šeiko Dance Company – dance professionals working in the contemporary dance field creating dance and music performances, immersive theatre, site-specific performances, promenade performances, dance education projects and theatre laboratories. The highest professional theatre scene awards winners, who have been working as a company in Klaipėda for six years and has expanded their geography to many countries abroad. It already toured in USA, Germany, Belgium, Czech Republic, Norway, Denmark, Russia, China, Iceland, Ukraine, Israel, Bulgaria, etc. Artistic director of the company – choreographer Agnija Šeiko is recognizable for her interdisciplinary approach, distinctive aesthetics, sensitive social topics and the variety of forms.

Idea, choreography Vytis Jankauskas| Dance Viltė Švarplytė| Music Goner, Yves Tumor, Arvo Part | Lights Povilas Laurinaitis

Premiere 17 April 2019, Vilnius

Expansion. Universe Enters Into My Body – a dance performance for one dancer, reel-to-reel tape recorder and inflatable walking ball.

This performance reminds of a meditation, where performer wrestles with her own reason and imagination, which prevent her from immersing into state of inoperativeness, staying in “the here and now“ presence.

Creators of this work pose a question: what it means for current human beings to experience states of inactivity, pause, emptiness. Creators also share a critical view on pragmatism and so called “reality of action“ where human being is subjected to economic logics and his/her value and meaningfulness of one’s life is measured exceptionally by productivity and effectiveness.

Vytis Jankauskas Dance Company was founded in 1997, and it became one of the first contemporary dance companies in independent Lithuania. The Company has collaborated with renowned Lithuanian dancers and choreographers. The Company has performed in contemporary dance festivals in Lithuania and abroad. Performances by Vytis Jankauskas are a consistent exploration of accurate, clean and expressive language of movement. Resent performances also include interdisciplinary means of expression. The Company received two Golden Stage Cross awards: dance performance “The Drowned Valley“ was awarded for the best choreography and music of 2003, and second Lithuanian highest award for theatre excellence went to Vytis Jankauskas as the best choreographer for his work “Vigil“ in 2008.

Conception, choreography & interpretation Emily Gastineau, Vilma Pitrinaite | Light design and video Zoltan Molnar

Support Lithuanian Council for Culture, Fillimit Platform/KoresponDance Festival (Zdar nad Sazavou, CzechRepublic), ATLAS Program/Impulstanz (Vienna), Fresh Oysters Performance Research (Minneapolis, MN, US), SE.S.TA Coaching, Residency (Prague), WorkspaceBrussels, Garage29

MATCH, uncovers competition, a defining feature of neoliberalism, determining not just the market economy but our work, relationships and, if you look close enough, it influences every aspect of our daily lives. I felt the necessity to work on this thematic in order to interrogate the ideas of improvement, betterment and progress that drive neoliberal capitalism, in order to interrogate the systems in power ( hierarchical, familial, economical, the systems of value ) that direct our behaviour and environment and in which we still participate even if we find there no more interest or agreement.

MATCH uncovers the competition in it's 2 main and contradictory aspects. The subtlety and the brutality. First of all, subtlety. To sustain, the game of competition requires a kind of equilibrium—if one player starts to gain, always the conclusion is foregone and the competition is over. Thus, two players of our hunger games, have to find an agreement, balance, symetry, synchrone, they have to be together.Then, mirroring and merging, they find themselves discovering differences as they attempt to reach the same image and uncovering the most subtle manifestations of competition - constant comparison, judgement and envy between individuals. And – brutality. MATCH explores the competition through grotesque displays of ego and aggression, connecting the social, the animal, and the national.

WE Company is where artist Vilma Pitrinaitė is working together. It believes that the movement has the potential for talking about the world or building temporary ways of being otherwise. It thinks of making performances as a radical social proposition, a great camouflage for doing subversive, illegal things, such as not participating in some systems – economic, hierarchic.

Based on collective work ideas, WE Company was created inside the National Theatre of Strasbourg corridors, where Vilma Pitrinaitė was studying theatre directing and Thomas Pondevie – dramaturgy. Together they initiated WE company in order to question the bodily and narrative logics inherent to a contemporary performance.

In 2020, WE Company does not abandon the ambition to be a collective where the dancers are both choreographers and performers, music author may influence dramaturgy while the dramaturge may also take care of costumes or visuals. Doing so We Company holds on to a research-based and intersectoral approach.