Sigita Ivaškaitė. Growing and growing – the 6th “Contempo” festival in Kaunas (Part I) | Culture

Gintarė Masteikaitė, the founder of the festival, the artistic director, the culprit and many other epithets, greets the audience before almost every performance of the program of half a dozen performances. Her interest and openness to the assembled audience, although it should be normal, is actually first of all very human and honest. Open communication with the audience pervades the entire festival, which this year attracted an unprecedented number of people, at least to me, with whom G. Masteikaita needed the help of a megaphone to talk to. And these are only impressions from the events that took place in the center – a significant part of them also take place in the districts of Kaunas.

Photo by Martynas Plepis. /Rhizome

To create a festival not only in the city, but also for the city, to show it, revealing the soul behind the architecture and concrete, requires a lot of attention and sensitivity. Experiencing Kaunas during Contempo, you forget who its mayor is now, and your mind leaps back in time, remembering how many of the country’s cultural shifts, just in the context of the theater, took place in the Temporary Capital. However, this does not mean that the festival is going backwards in terms of artistic expression.

Subtly played with historical contexts “Hearts and Chimneys” Premiere of “Psilikon Theater”narrating in Kaunas in 1934. the history of the founded shoe factory “Lituanica”. In the context of the Russian war in Ukraine, the visuals created by Auksė Petrulienė’s silicone dolls and archival photos and the masterful live percussion of Arkadiy Gotesman not only tell the facts of the past, but also subtly remind us of what is being fought against now. The parallel between one shoe for all and one ideology is clear and effective. Used in time and place, it sensitively contrasts with the expression “the heart fell on the heels” mentioned at the beginning of the play. At the end of the story, the heels of families and entire generations worn by the universal shoe ache like the hearts of the entire nation.

Photo by Dan Macijauskas/”Nano steps – Into the lab”

Admittedly, watching this performance in the impressive but stuffy event hall of the Art and Music Department of the Đžuolynas library required endurance. It was much cooler here the other day Trial & Theater (Finland) performance-experiment “Nano steps – Into the lab” during From the stories of shoes, we moved to the miracles under their soles, to the smallest particles that we don’t even see or notice every day. Microparticles, placed under the microscope with fragments of materials collected on site, or soil brought by shoes, become the smallest imaginable heroines of the puppet theater. Live and recorded sounds of the audience, ultrasound, musical track, and changing light make them jump.

The creators of the show manage to unexpectedly attract the viewer for a while to the world, which we don’t think about every day, but which we ourselves are made of. The invisible but foundational particles that make us up come into focus, perform an unplanned choreography, create unexpected relationships, as if lightly asking: so what is really real and important, what is it made of? However, this part lasts a little too short, as the team plays with the introduction of the play for too long. However, hoping that artists will not abandon this concept and improve it, it would be interesting to watch the further development of the performance of nano particles.

Photo by Martynas Plepis. /Rhizome

Comebacks and extensions are nothing new to loyal festival goers. This was evident when watching Contempo for the third time French troupe Rhizome performance. This time, artist Fanny Austry climbed, hung, meditated on the rod of a metal structure resembling a sculpture, and at the same time caused great excitement. A huge crowd of people gathered in the Daugird amphitheater watched with bated breath the concentrated, slow and thoughtful movement of the body at a height of six meters. Every mistake here would cost the most, but at the same time the performer leaves no doubts about her accuracy and with her body she really changes not only her own shape, but also the shape of the structure as a sign and the landscape behind them. Each angle of view in Bleu Tenace is different, but accompanied by the same moment of tension and balance that unites the audience.

Photo by Andriaus Aleksandravičius/”River of Joy”

Some of the Contempo performances are not to be seen, but to be accidentally caught up in the city. This is what happened last year with the one that appeared for the first time at the Artistic Action Week (MAS) in Vilnius last year “River of Joy” (the author of the idea is Paulius Markevičius). This year, 3,500 black balls rolled twice in Kaunas: at the opening of the festival on V.Putvinskis street, and the next day on Laisvės avenue, where they all descended through a tube from the balcony of the National Drama Theater of Kaunas.

The seemingly strange determination of a few people in black to control the flow of marbles on the street is not only attention-grabbing, but actually gratifying. In a short time, the wave of objects and people around them becomes a kind of capsule of joy, moving along the street. In the middle of it, there will usually be those who simply seek joy and dive into it, and on the sides – those who protect them and ensure that joy. Simple at first glance, although requiring a lot of effort from the performers, the artistic action manages to capture a moment of creativity, joy and freedom, in which these states complement each other, merge and separate at the same time.

Photo by Martynas Plepis/”Down”

They also defeated the Swiss twice Mélissos Guex with Clément’o Grin “Down”. The duo of energetic, extremely clean drum rhythm and pulsating dance energy greeted each other on the first day on the site near the Acropolis and, being extremely close to the audience, created the atmosphere of an unexpected, inevitable meeting, from which you don’t even want to leave. Meanwhile, the evening performance of the same performance near the “Kultūra” cafe became a small concert, a rhythmic rave, calling for freedom for the city.

Down, which does not create a specific plot, just like “River of Joy” or “Bleu Tenace” at the festival, performs not only the function of free events introducing the variety of performing arts. These open and experiential works become an introduction and a springboard for the viewer to follow further, more serious works that require more concentration, such as “Chiaroscuro” produced by Be kompanija (choreographer Liza Baliasnaya).

However, about this and yet to be experienced performances – in the next text.