Educational Festival “Dive into the Theatre” Invites Everyone to Express their Emotions
The 12th educational festival “Dive into the Theatre” starts the summer season on June 1-4. Are you ready for the summer? A new hat, flip-flops, and sun cream are waiting for their start, but before swimming in water and sunbaths let’s dive into the sea of various emotions… in the theatre.
Express and Experience New Emotions
“Lights, colours, music, and words are integral elements of the theatre creating various emotions. We wanted to reflect that in the current programme of the festival. We think that it is really important to talk about it because the pandemic and the war in Ukraine extremely affect our emotions, as if bottling up most of our feelings, especially those of children and teenagers. We invite you to release and express your emotions, as well as to restore their balance. Together with an artist from Belgium, we will even examine screams! Also, different levels of diving will await the participants of our festival: splashing for the little ones, swimming lane for more experienced ones, and for those, who know the theatre the best, the loyal ones with quite an experience, we will offer diving with the professionals: experts of sound, music, lights, and make-up will invite them to their workshops, show their workplaces, panels, and allow the participants to create themselves. We promise that the participants of our festival will experience many different emotions: they will get an opportunity to see performances, while activities will await in the youth zone; moreover, our educational activities are adjusted to viewers with different needs, so, for those who have intellectual, hearing disabilities or reduced mobility. We are trying to be considerate of each other; thus, we have also prepared to meet our friends from Ukraine”, say the curators of the programme Skaistė Jurėnė and Urtė Grigaliūnaitė.
The Festival will be Opened with the Programme of Circus Performers
If it slips your mind that the festival begins on June 1, the performance of contemporary circus artists next to the theatre will definitely remind you of it. An international team of actors – Pauline Talon (Ireland), Džiugas Konsmanas (Lithuania), and Liam Carmody (Spain) – have united their skills and created a performance with a mixture of acrobatics and theatre. The performance is inspired by mystical characters from Lithuanian folk tales that, having found their way to an unfamiliar environment, will investigate it comically and sensitively. A guaranteed adventure for all viewers.
A. Aleksandravičius photo: Circus Performers
Four Performances are Included in the Programme: Humming Objects, Shadows, a Concert, and Screams
On June 1 (7 p.m.), at the Small Stage, the performance “Mongos” by Sergej Gössner and the concert of band “ZBS Band” will take place. This non-traditional performance is brought to the viewers by the Golden Gate theatre from Kyiv (director Stas Zhyrkov). If you are interested in the plot, we can only tell you that it is a story about two guys that have become friends… in a rehabilitation centre. As we understand, both of them have disabilities. But is it a sad story? Definitely not! This is a story of two cool boys that, of course, think of themselves as grown-ups… And what else can the two grown-up boys talk about than girls and their future behind the walls of the centre?
After the performance, the audience will participate in a concert because both actors are leaders of this band and winners of the musical show “X Factor” in Ukraine. The performance will be shown in Ukrainian with surtitles in Lithuanian; recommended for viewers from 14 years old.
Mongos, Kyiv
On June 2, two performances await: from 10 a.m. and 12 p.m. performance “Electric Shadows” (Berlin, Germany). The performance is intended for 4-8 year-old children (without words). Theatre company “florschütz & döhnert” comes with a strange machine: it moves back and forth, shakes, hums, buzzes, and rattles like a running train. Everything rotates and changes, even shadows separate from objects and go for a walk. In the majority of their productions for children, theatre company “florschütz & döhnert” are seeking for the synthesis of music, theatre of various dolls and objects, and acting expressiveness.
On June 3 (7 p.m.), at the Small Stage, we will even invite you to shout together with the Belgian artist Sarah Vanhee. Her lecture-performance “Collected Screams” (in English) is extremely intriguing. The artist states that screaming heals and helps us to express who we really are. In “Collected Screams”, she is sharing examples of screams and screaming people from the fields of science, literature, history, fine arts, philosophy, music, mythology, psychoanalysis, sports, cinema, etc.
Sarah Vanhee , Collected Screams
“I am the Little Light” (Germany) is another performance by our guests that will take place on June 4, 12 and 2 p.m. For 3-9 year-old children (without words). Light and shadows are setting out on a journey: in the contrasts of light and darkness, sounds and silence, calmness and movement theatre full of beauty and dreamy magic is created. The world of tales presents a challenge for the creative imagination of children and shows that even with the simplest means it is possible to create new images by combining dance, music, and live projections. In 2019, the performance won “Award der KinderKulturBörse” in Munich, Germany.
“I am the Little Light”
On June 4, 9 p.m., the festival will be closed by the performance “An Empty Chair”, a musical story about Juozas Naujalis, which will take place next to the Kaunas Castle (NKDT together with the public institution “Raudondvaris Manor Art Incubator”,) director: Agnius Jankevičius). The performance is filled with the sounds of electrical guitars and beatbox, while the figure of Juozas Naujalis never leaves the stage – that already tempts us to see it. The event is free-of-charge.
Workshops: From Laughter Yoga to Memories of Your First Steps
The programme of the festival is divided based on the age categories of the participants; thus, the activities are adjusted to preschoolers and elementary school students, teenagers, and families. The participants will be invited on backstage tours with actors that know every inch of the theatre: Liucija Rukšnaitytė, Ugnė Žirgulė, and Ridas Žirgulis. If you want to feel other emotions, we offer you 30 different workshops. Workshops will be held by the representatives of the theatre: Augustas Gornatkevičius, Eglė Kižaitė, Goda Petkutė, Indrė Puišytė Šidlauskienė, Deividas Breivė, Miglė Remeikaitė, Titas Petrikis, and others. Are you interested in movements, direction, plastic art, make-up, sound, or theatrical lightning and voice? We will fulfil your emotional needs. Or maybe you would also like to try laughter yoga? People say that it is suitable even for those that have no sense of humour. During the workshop “Do you remember your first steps?” with Eglė Venckutė you will get an opportunity to remember your first steps and look at your body, as well as its moving potential, from another perspective.
Actress of the Lesya Ukrainka National Academic Theatre Kristina Kiseliovaitė.
On Friday, the zone organised by the young volunteers of the theatre will be open – meetings and games will await you there. Workshops for families with children and tours in the theatre for our friends from Ukraine are prepared by the actress of the Lesya Ukrainka National Academic Theatre Kristina Kiseliovaitė. Educations of the festival are marked differently to indicate which ones are adjusted to participants with different needs. You can find and analyse the whole programme of the Festival “Dive into the Theatre” here: www.nerkas.lt. Programme in Ukrainian: http://tiny.cc/dramosteatras_UA.
The festival is supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania, the Lithuanian Council for Culture, and the Freda Support and Charity Fund.
NKDT information
