CONTEMPO OFF
This year, for the first time, the main program of the international performing arts festival ConTempo will be supplemented by the ConTempo OFF program. ConTempo OFF is an independent experimental platform where creative and work-in progress works will be presented by young creators and emerging performing arts professionals, testing the boundaries of performing arts. In the one-day program on August 2 you will be able to see up to 5 different works.
The organizers and initiators of the “ConTempo OFF” program – Kaunas City Chamber Theatre and experimental audiovisual KOSMOS THEATRE – present to the festival audience interdisciplinary works by young Lithuanian creators that do not fit into the boundaries of traditional music, theatre or art and the usual festival formats.
The OFF program is based on three priorities:
- Presentation of non-traditional works of beginning creators (presentation of finished works and sketches);
- Interdisciplinary creation of experienced creators from different fields, in which live performance and audience participation would prevail;
- Interactive and personally experienced self-propelled audio-visual installations.
Contempo OFF programme:
17:00-18:00
Performance-artistic study HOW TO SWIM
Author and performer – Tautvydas Galkauskas
Attention! Up to 40 viewers can participate at the same time.
18:00-22:00
Visiting installations
- Installation LETHARGY | Science and Art Laboratory
Composer – Andrius Šiurys, scenographer – Oles Makukhin, light artist – Ignas Rulevičius.
Attention! Only 1 viewer can participate at the time.
- Sound sculpture HERE HEAR | The creative result of the international creative workshop “Kosmos LAB’23”.
Creative team: Edvinas Siliūnas, Agnė Nemanytė.
- Piece for piano two chambers and seven objects, (C)AM(E)R(A) | Creative result of international creative workshop “Kosmos LAB’23”.
Creative team: Kornelijus Jaroševičius, Julija Bagdonavičiūtė, Žilvinas Vingelis, Andrius Šiurys. Performed by: Julija Bagdonavičiūtė, Dinas Marcinkevičius, Nojus Šeputis, Gintarė Šmigelskytė, Kornelijus Jaroševičius. Storyboard artist – Paulina Simutytė.
Attention! Only 1 viewer can participate at a time.
19:30-21:00 CONCERTO AND INSTALLATION FOR PIANO AND A PIECE OF FURNITURE | KOSMOS THEATRE
Pianist – Julija Bagdonavičiūtė, director – Žilvinas Vingelis, composers: Andrius Šiūrys, Domantas Pūras, engineer – Deividas Dzikevičius.
Attention! Up to 100 viewers can participate at the same time.
ABOUT THE CONTEMPO OFF PIECES
Performance-artistic study HOW TO SWIM | 17:00-18:00
Tautvydas Galkauskas
Attention! The work is performed only in English.
I must apologize to Lithuanians because I’m writing everything in English. I’m doing it because stones understand only English, and some of them can also read this.
In the world of entertainment, we are used to seeing human protagonists, but what if the main character in a show was a stone? Or should I call it rock? Well, it doesn’t matter. Surprisingly, there is a show out there that has taken this creative leap. This performance will focus on the main character in this show, a talented stone, and explore its physical appearance, talents, and abilities, as well as its impact on the other characters and the plot.
At first glance, the stone may seem like a simple and unremarkable object. However, upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that there is something special about it. The stone is rough and jagged, with a unique pattern of colors and lines that give it a distinctive appearance. It is also surprisingly heavy for its size, which adds to its mystique.
Despite its inanimate nature, the stone possesses a multitude of talents and abilities. For one, it has an uncanny ability to sense the emotions and intentions of those around it, almost as if it were alive. It can also communicate with other objects, such as laptops and television, in a way that humans cannot.
Humans are initially skeptical of its abilities and dismiss it as a mere rock. However, as they spend more time with the stone and witness its incredible talents firsthand, they begin to see it in a new light. The stone becomes a symbol of hope and inspiration for them and its presence.
Installation LETHARGY | MMLAB | 18:00-22:00
Author of the idea, composer – Andrius Šiurys, scenographer – Oles Makukhin, light artist – Ignas Rulevičius
Lethargy is a sick sleep from which it is difficult to wake up. It is a state in which a person’s vital functions have stopped, but the brain functions as if he were asleep. In a state of lethargy, the body does not change, but when awake, a person becomes old in a short time. This installation swings the listener-viewer into states close to lethargy. Binaural sound recordings, fragments of science fiction literature plots, futuristic objects and their glow are used.
One person can watch/listen to the installation at a time. During it, we invite you to put on headphones, listen to the recording, and observe internal and external changes.
Sound sculpture HERE HEAR | The creative result of the international creative workshop “Kosmos LAB’23” | 18:00-22:00
Edvinas Siliūnas, Agnė Nemanytė
Sound constantly surrounds us, affects us and is affected by us. Sound is everywhere around us – there is no space on earth without sound. Even if you were locked in an anechoic room, completely isolated, without any extraneous sound, after a while you would hear your heartbeat, your breathing.
The sound sculpture “here hear” is an interactive installation-game, during which the sound image is born, changes, expands or contracts through the physical presence and movement of a person in space. This encounter is an inseparable connection between the body and the materiality of sound. This sculpture provides an opportunity to define the created sound image not only by the materiality of the space or a pre-written composition, but also by the physical presence and movement of the person in the space. In this way, this sound sculpture is perceptually (and physically) both a social event and a private experiential act, inherently enveloping and drawn from within.
Piece for piano, two chambers and seven objects (C)AM(E)R(A) | The creative result of the international creative workshop “Kosmos LAB’23” | 18:00- 22:00
Creative team: Kornelijs Jaroševičius, Julija Bagdonavičiūtė, Žilvinas Vingelis, Andrius Šiurys. Performed by: Julija Bagdonavičiūtė, Dinas Marcinkevičius, Nojus Šeputis, Gintarė Šmigelskytė, Kornelijs Jaroševičius. Frame artist – Paulina Simutytė.
It is an audiovisual work written with a precise score of music and video parameters, which explores the semantic and aesthetic interrelationships of sound and visual objects performed live on stage, audiovisual polyphony and audiovisual montage.
Do we have enough attention and imagination to hear the sound in the picture and see the picture in the sound?
Do we realize when these two media are working together and when they are working separately? Do we easily give in to distraction?
In the era of visual culture, artists from different fields use the image as one of the instruments to create a coherent and live chamber piece that combines the practices of musician, cinematographer, editing director and performing artist.
CONCERTO AND INSTALLATION FOR PIANO AND A PIECE OF FURNITURE | KOSMOS THEATER 19:30-21:00
Pianist – Julija Bagdonavičiūtė, director – Žilvinas Vingelis, composers: Andrius Šiurys, Domantas Pūras, engineer – Deividas Dzikevičius.
A live concert and a sound sculpture and installation linked by sound technologies examine the dualism of the domestic-physical and artistic-ideal nature of the piano – the paradoxically harmonious roles of one of the most popular musical instruments and home furniture.
Croatian pianist Ivo Pogorelich has said that a piano without a pianist is just a piece of furniture. It is a piece of furniture in the house, usually loaded with vases and services, whose real concert and musical potential, regardless of its manufacturer and mechanics, is determined by the people around it.
Is our potential all up to us? How can a piece of furniture that has smothered music in itself break free from its closed lid? What kind of dreamlike creature does the vocation locked inside us and trying to escape with all our might make us?
These questions will be explored in a concert featuring excerpts from the most important pieces of piano music, during which the live music will become a sonic dream of a transformed piece of furniture.