KAFKA INSOMNIA | VISUAL LIVE MUSIC PERFORMANCE
„October 2. Sleepless night. For the third time in a row. I fall asleep quickly, but after an hour I wake up as if I had inserted my head into a missing hole. From then on, all night until five, you are asleep, but at the same time vivid dreams keep you from falling asleep. Formally, I am asleep beside myself, and at the time I have to struggle with dreams. “(Diaries, 1910-1923, Franz Kafka)“.
Visual live music performance for teens and adults KAFKA INSOMNIA tells a realistically dreamy Czech writers Franc Kafka one insomnia night story. Dreaming vigilantly- is a creative method, a lifestyle, an effect of illness or the core reason of genius literature of Kafka? Creating in insomnia and getting through to reality dream F. Kafka work creates conditional, full of unexpected images, extended feeling of time, premature absurd, existentialism or even surrealistic approach leading step by step of characteristics common to realism school with consistent descriptions.
Project initiator, composer Andrius Šiurys ( in 2020 he was awarded by Lithuanian composers union for the best Young Composer prize) idea of musical performance by F. Kafka work was holding for a long time. “About one in a half years ago I asked myself- on which artists background would I like to stand to create an audio-visual performance? For which artists, poet, composer I most agree with? And who are the people I would like to work with- to experiment, improvise and to dive where alone I wouldn’t dear? I selected F. Kafka for the darkness and absurd.
For a long time I knew directors Žilvinas personality and his creative style (I especially admire and respect his ability to connect different art forms and surrealistic theatre speech), I didn‘t think twice- we need to create this together. With Žilvinas we have created several works, practically and theoretically we analysed visual theatre genre, dreamed about our experimental theatre. For him music in a performance is high priority also we have similar view so I‘m joyful that the „KAFKA INSOMNIA“ in the eyes of quarantine becomes the first performance of our new KOSMOS THEATRE.
“Our team is very strong and various. Even though this is not our first work together, but it‘s the first time with such an open material and in such an experimental environment. In F. Kafka world everything stands in a dot and no one has the right to move from the current point and at the same time there is more life in that point than we can manage. It‘s literature, in the scene rising the need to organize time relatively, image and atmospheric importance offering new ways of montage. In their powerfully probe humour and fear, movement and stillness, sound and silence.
The search of silence and sound I would of course invite Andrius therefor it‘s a pleasure that he did it first. Creative process is not traditional. We let ourselves start from associations not from the text, from intuition not from a narrative. I believe that this performance will be interested to the traditional theatre audiences as much as young people who do not admire long monologs and palace intrigues“ says performance director Žilvinas Vingelis.
KAFKA INSOMNIA- image, sound and media performance is created based on 2020 march released theatre “KOSMOS MANIFEST”. Drama acting, lively performed electroacoustic music, video projections, contemporary object theatre and sound manipulation KOSMOS THEATRE creators are diving into paranoiac and suffering legendary Czech writes creative atmospheric, writes main life nuances, insomnia symptoms, visual and sound hallucinations altogether with search of never ending and never finished Kafka world limits.
AWARDS & NOMINATIONS
2021 Nomination for “Best music in performance” (Composer Andrius Šiurys) in Lithuanian National performing arts awards “Golden stage cross”
2021 Award for “Best music in performance” (Composer Andrius Šiurys) in Kaunas performing arts awards “Fortuna”
KAFKA INSOMNIA CREATIVE TEAM
Director Žilvinas Vingelis
Composer Andrius Šiurys
Designer Paulina Simutytė
Video projectors Kornelijus Jaroševičius
Actors Gytis Laskovas, Balys Ivanauskas and Paulina Simutytė
Lively performing musicians: saxophone Danielius Pancerovas and guitar Justinas Žilys
Producer Darius Vizbaras
Performance premiered at @ConTempo festival in Kaunas Chamber theater on August 20-21st, 2020 Duration: 150 Min.
KAFKA INSOMNIA IS CO-PRODUCED WITH
PARTLY FUNDED BY
