Lithuania will be represented by three dance artists at the prestigious Italian festival of Sant’Angelo Culture

The Polish curator, playwright and critic Tomasz Kireńczuk, who has been running the festival for the third year, mentions that his and his team’s goal is to turn the medieval city into a “city-festival” for at least ten days.

This year is special, because the festival’s focus is on Lithuania – even three works of Lithuanian dance artists will be presented on the professional stage, their workshops and meetings with international performing arts professionals will be held. Gintarė Masteikaitė, head of the Lithuanian Dance Information Center (LŠIC) and the “New Baltic Dance” festival, shares her thoughts regarding the Santarkanžela Festival and its importance for Lithuania and its creators.

– For the 54th time, the Santarcangelo Festival brings together a large community of artists, dance experts, and spectators in Italy. What makes this year special for the festival and what makes it special for Lithuania?

Gintarė Masteikaitė: This festival is famous as a place for the introduction of brave and young creators, where dozens of dance professionals from Italy and all over Europe come. The festival not only introduces local and guest audiences to emerging artists, but often becomes an international career platform for artists.

For the first time, even three Lithuanian dance artists will appear in the festival program. Their works will be presented 9 times. We sincerely hope that this festival will open even more doors to foreign festivals and theaters for all three works. We are already coordinating the details of the presentation of Lithuanian art at the Romaeuropa festival in 2025, and the Santarcangelo festival will undoubtedly serve as the first serious meeting with potential participants.

– Lithuanian artists are appearing at the festival for the second year, last year the audience might get acquainted with Anna-Marijas Adomaitytė’s work “workpiece”. I’m curious, why so few years and only now?

GM: A very relevant question. We, LŠIC, established a relationship with Tomasz Kireńczuk even before he became the artistic director of this festival and consistently talked regarding the Lithuanian dance community and their creative ideas. This was followed by a visit to Lithuania and exchanges of videos of performances or conversations on the Zoom platform. From all the collected material, Tomasz himself selected which creators he thought were the most relevant and best suited to the context and spirit of the festival. It took us several years to reach our goal of including at least three artists in one program. Such presentations require time and financial input. Time is important to build a strong and trusting relationship, and the financial side is to make dreams come true.

– The festival invites us to experience the rave frenzy, ceremonies, protests, other practices and rituals in a new way. How does the work of Lithuanian Lukas Karvelis “Kur krantas”, Anna-Marija Adomaitytė’s “Pas de deux” and Agnietė Lisičkinaitė’s “Hands up”, as well as Agnietė’s creative workshop “How to protest” fit into this context?

GM: It is not for nothing that these creators have been selected for the program, because their performances in one way or another respond to both the slogan of the festival and the presented practices: the creators will invite you to reflect on your social and political views, deconstruct dance classics and, of course, immerse yourself in the search for Baltic identity.

– This year, the festival welcomes creators and festival guests with the statement “while we are here”. What thoughts and associations does this phrase evoke?

GM: I think the most important message is the here and now. How we perceive the environment in which we live, how we act and how we are affected by different laws, news, attitudes, events (wars, emigration, climate crises, nationalist movements, social inequality, etc.). What we can change, and what we just need to feel and experience. How artists see themselves and what they think must be expressed, jumped out or spoken. The artistic director of the festival, Tomasz Kireńczuk, always very sensitively observes the environment, the artists and actualizes the moments of the present with his choices. This year’s slogan was chosen for a reason.