“KOSMOS LAB” is a visual theater laboratory organized for the sixth year aimed at the professional development, creative expression, and advancement of visual theater and interdisciplinary art among the younger generation of artists in Lithuania. Over the past six years, more than 70 selected Lithuanian professional performing arts creators have participated in the laboratory, learning from such global and Lithuanian professionals as Prof. Heiner Goebbels, Dr. Yaron Abulafia, Director Duda Paiva, Director Matteo Spiazzi, Director Adrian Schvarzstein, engineering theater “Akhe”, Prof. Dr. Kristupas Sabolius, Doc. Mantautas Krukauskas, Director Marija Baranauskaitė, Director Kornelijus Jaroševičius, Choreographer Goda Žukauskaitė, Engineer Deividas Dzikevičius, Video Artists Rimas Sakalauskas and Mikas Žukauskas, Director Linas Jurkštas, and others.
This year’s laboratory theme is interdisciplinity. The workshop mentor is French mixed music composer and multimedia artist Pierre Jodlowski, whose boundary-pushing work encompasses contemporary music, dance, circus, theater, visual arts, electronic music, films, and interactive installations. Pierre Jodlowski describes his work as an “active process” on both physical (musical gestures, action not only with sounds but also with the body in space) and psychological levels (analyzing the relationship with memory, sound visualization, body, and media). Since 1998, the artist has been one of the artistic directors of “éOle” (a research and production studio based in Toulouse), and since 2019, the artistic director of the “Musica Electronica Nova” festival organized by the National Music Forum Wrocław (Poland). He is currently an associated composer of the IRCAM composition course. As French composer Nathanaël Bergèse states, “Jodlowski’s ideas rely on the creation of a performative dictionary serving narration.” Pierre Jodlowski’s work includes performer action in space (“Mad Max”), musical performance (“Respire”), theater masks (“Diary Random and Pickles”), a unique system of physical gestures (“Time’n’Money”), and explores the relationship between physicality and media (“Ghostland, Territory of Shadows”). Constantly expanding both the viewer-listener experience and the limits of performers’ activities, he employs contemporary technologies, precise work with performers and media art to create polyphonic and structurally multi-layered audiovisual compositions and intermedial works, performed live by professionals from various fields: actors, musicians, cinematographers, lighting designers, dancers, and others. In 2002, the artist won the Claude Arrieu SACEM Prize, in 2012 – the Hervé Dugardin SACEM Prize, and in 2013, he won the “Academie Charles Cros” award for one of his compact discs. In 2015, he became the laureate of the Grand Prize of the Lyceum in France for the work “Time & Money”. From 2017 to 2019, he was an artist in residence at the National Theater “Lux” in Valence, France.
During the workshop, participants worked with choreographer, contemporary dance performer, creator, and educator, Greta Grinevičiūtė, who is a doctoral student at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre (LMTA). As a performer, Greta actively collaborates with choreographers in Lithuania and abroad – AIROS Dance Theater, Vytautas Jankauskas Dance Theater, Simon Pederson, Tony Vezich, Andrius Katinas, Mauricio Berreira Nueves, and others. Greta has created several dance films – one of them is still in post-production. Her first video “Faked David” was shown at the “From Jaffa to Agripas” dance film festival in Jerusalem, Israel. The creator has also presented several stage dance works – “Dance for a Vacuum Cleaner and Dad” (a solo performance, Arts Printing House, Vilnius, 2018), “Banana Dream” (Arts Printing House, Vilnius, 2018), “B & B Dialogue” (the performance toured several countries and was nominated as the best dance performance of the year at the Golden Cross of the Stage awards in 2016), “Ball” (Arts Printing House, 2015), “Honoring Grandmothers” (Kaunas Artists’ House, 2016), etc. G. Grinevičiūtė also performs in productions by young theater creators – “Things,” “Unlearned Lessons,” “YesMoonCan.”
Throughout an open call for professional composers, video artists, lighting designers, dancers, actors, musicians, stage and video directors, choreographers, media artists, scenographers, representatives of visual arts, and interdisciplinary creators 10 creators was selected.
Participants: pianists and art researchers Marta Finkelštein Julija Bagdonavičiūtė, director Adomas Juška, composer and art researcher Andrius Šiurys, composers Ignas Šoliūnas, Domantas Pūras, Ieva Raubytė, actors Tautvydas Galkauskas, Justina Mykolaitytė, Lukas Dirsė, theatre maker Armanda Rudelytė, video and light artist Tomas Stonys.
Workshop art director – Žilvinas Vingelis.
Producer- Darius Vizbaras.
Co-organizers – Julija Bagdonavičiūtė, Marta Finkelštein
Technical lead – Edvinas Gruodis Siliūnas
WORKSHOP SCHEDULE:
12th of June Virtual meetings with workshop mentor Pierre Jodlowski.
13th of August Virtual meetings with workshop mentor Pierre Jodlowski.
19-22 of August Creative workshops at the Composers’ House, Vilnius.
23-25 of August Creative workshops at the Vilnius Art Printing House.
25 of August Presentation of the results of the creative workshops at the Black Hall of the Vilnius Art Printing House.
The project is produced by audiovisual experimental independent company “KOSMOS THEATRE”
Project partners:
LMTA Performing arts research center
Lithuanians Composers Home
Based on the workshop theme “OWERWHELMANCE” prepared by the workshop mentor Pierre Jodlowski we invite you to see the results of the final work-in-progress work.
PARTLY FUNDED BY
