2022 Festival Program
BANGAS
interdisciplinary performance no period needed
Authors – Sandija Santa and Anna Maskava
Bangas is a process-based, live performance created during the Sansusī welfare residency program. For one month, the artists collaborated with residents of Aknīste Psychoneurological Hospital and Aknīste Health and Social Care Center, who, due to their long-term stay in these institutions, have limited access to art and culture in their daily lives.
The structural basis of the performance is made up of drawings created by residents of Aknīste Psychoneurological Hospital and Aknīste Health and Social Care Center, words expressed in conversations, and texts created as a result of text-creation tasks.
Bangas is an initial impulse, a fixation of feelings, a stream of consciousness, a word game, a performative dialogue, and a rhythmically monotonous process without a specific destination.
Basso continuo in electronic light
This concert brings together three young but already experienced musicians to combine ancient sounds with the sounds of modern technology in a common ensemble. The ensemble includes singer Monta Martinsone (Latvia), harpsichordist Gertruda Jerjomenko (Latvia) and composer and sound artist Mantautas Krukauskas (Lithuania). The program is based on the monodys for voice and basso continuo by 17th-century Italian composers. Monody is a special genre of vocal solo music in the early Baroque period, which arose as a contrast to the polyphony of the Renaissance and was distinguished by a single, distinctly virtuosic and richly ornamented melodic line accompanied by one or more instruments. The electronic music section, performing live, will create subtle spectral sound transformations by synthesizing voice and harpsichord.
Claudio Monteverdi (Claudio Monteverdi; 1567–1643)
Laudate Dominum in sanctus eius
Tarquino Merula (Tarquino Merula; 1594/95–1665)
Canzonetta Spirituale sopra alla nanna
Johann Sebastian Bach (Johann Sebastian Bach; 1685–1750)
Suite from. 3 Airs BWV 1068
Giulio Caccini (1551–1618)
Dalla porta doriente
Girolamo Frescobaldi (Girffolamo Frescobaldi; 1583–1643)
Cento partite sopra passacagli
Claudio Monteverdi
Lamento della Ninfa
Johann Sebastian Bach
Erbarme dich from the Matthew Passion BWV 244
Hēsihija (ΗΣΥΧΙΑ)
Hesychia is a calm, flat sea. In his poetic conversation with the goddess, which has become part of the Western tradition under the title On Nature, Parmenides suggests that the mind must reach a similarly flat state in order to turn towards the truth and turn away from the path of many, misleading opinions. On the path of truth, the goddess reveals the existing, which neither was nor will be, but is. This composition is inspired by some of the preserved lines of Parmenides’ poem. In order to approach the strangeness of his thought, the ancient Greek language is used in the hymns.
Introduction Fausto Romitelli I cloud play seascape (Anna Petrini solo)
Composer Anna Ķirse
Artist Katrīna Neiburga
Performed by:
Artūrs Gailis (conductor)
Agate Pooka (voice)
Anna Petrini (Petcold flute)
Guntars Freibergs (percussion)
Juris Āzers (percussion)
Anna Gāgane (bass clarinet)
Oskars Bokanovs (double bass)
SATIKT
Satikt is a performance of songs, inclusive choreography and moving sound. It is a study in the multi-part (polyphonic) nature of Lithuanian sutartinė songs, where the parallel songs are characterized by complimentary rhythm and a verticality of sound rich in seconds. The dances of the performance Satikt, just like the parallel songs of sutartinė, performed simultaneously and simultaneously, tend to differ from each other by only a tone.
Satikt balances between similar differences and different similarities.
In the performance, sutartinė songs are viewed and evaluated as an indirect practice of mutual dialogue, where, while maintaining respect and the need for the adjacent in the other, simultaneously sounding, the slightly different is emphasized as complementary. Satikt is perhaps an attempt to meet, highlighting and emphasizing the dissonant.
Authors, choreographers, set designers – IevaKrish
Song arrangements and sound design – Jēkabs Nīmanis
Creative process observer – Sandija Santa
Performers – Dārta Drava, Ieva Gaurilčikaite-Sants, Krišjānis Sants, Ilze Amanda Zakrevska
Producers – Tuvumi (Anna Ulberte, Katrīna Smilga), Valmiera Summer Theatre Festival. The performance was created during the 2020 Valmiera Summer Theatre Festival and later developed with the support of the VKKF, the Choreographers Association program Jumts and the dance exchange program HOROS.
In its natural form, the singing of sutartinės as a practice has ceased to exist. The word “sutartine” is derived from the Lithuanian word “sutarti”: to meet, to live together, to arrange, to agree, to be in harmony, to hear. Sutartinės are performed by two to four singers (or groups of singers). Each one sings what seems to be her own song with her own parallel text, complementary rhythmic interplay of voices and a difference in tone or semitone, which creates a sometimes sharp and bird-song-like harmony. Sutartines were sung only by women (peasants), living in one-street row villages in Upper Lithuania, in the rural areas of northeastern Lithuania. Farmstead after farmstead, all the houses are uniformly gray with thatched roofs and sparsely painted window frames. There are no churches or taverns in the villages. The exit from the farmstead is only to the common street that connects the farmstead with the rest of the world. There are no craftsmen in the village, everyone builds their own house. Everyone’s lives are similar. The gray houses merge with the fields, people with their work, creating a melancholic space of time.
The need for each girl to sing her own song at the same time seems so understandable. So similar, but different only in tone. Thus, complementing the rhythm of the other and highlighting the difference, the song begins, continues and ends with stubbornly dissonant seconds.
The IevaKrish Satikt association has begun to develop a method of creating polyphonic dance material within the framework of its creative process. In it, two performers, each in their own rhythmic frame, complement the other, dance one common dance. Or, in other words, how to dance together, each dancing their own? How can the different be enriching to the overall picture?
Sansusī Musicians’ Standoff with organ
This instrument is called a thousand tongues, this time only two will be sharper than them – Ata and Ilona! The centuries-old repertoire of church and concert hall organs will be contrasted by the legendary sound of the Hammond organ.
Ilona Birģele – organ
Atis Andersons – Hammond organ
Prasi maizei
Documentary theatre performance
Prasi maizei tells the most insignificant story about the most insignificant woman in the most insignificant village. One might ask: why tell it? Because in this insignificantness lies the imprint of urbanization and the idea of a country that has moved to the center and forgotten its periphery. In this insignificant story live traditions that will soon be forgotten, a past that is praised and condemned, and a future that is feared and hoped for.
The performance uses Vika Eksta’s photographs from the series God Nature Work and audio documentation with the stories of the people of Aknīste about life in the countryside.
Director and makeup artist – Vita Malahova
Assistant director – Tone Haldrup Lorenzen
Music – Alberto Barberis
Photography – Vika Eksta
Video – Undīne Celitāne
Actors – I Patom Theatre: Aude Lorrillard, Vita Malahova
Movement artists – Emīlija Berga, Kitija Geidāne, Oskars Moore
The project was created in collaboration with the Sansusī Welfare Residence.
Morning stretches
Stiffness, stiffness, let me go!
Madara Luīze Muzikante (gymnast)
Kārlis Tirzītis (musician)
Hammock Commune. The Traveling Show
Being in nature and hiking is cool. However, a person is a rather helpless and vulnerable creature, so in order to survive in harsh conditions, he needs all kinds of things. We are used to looking at things as our everyday allies, but would we be able to coexist peacefully if things could tell us what they really think about us?
In the Hammock commune, everyone lives in peace and harmony, but sometimes everything is not as beautiful as it looks in the pictures on social networks. The performance will offer an opportunity to look into the inner life of the commune, learn about their experiences, romantic aspirations, future plans and longings.
The performance was created for the Valmiera Summer Theatre Festival.
Director: Sabīne Alise Ozoliņa
Playwright: Ance Muižniece
Choreographer: Laura Gorodko
Executive producer: Jānis Znotiņš
Participants: Endīne Bērziņa
Mary and lightning
Marija was struck by lightning as a child. She doesn’t remember the strike itself, but she remembers everything else: it was late autumn, orange clouds, the sun far ahead, the sidewalk, warm rain. Then there was a thud, a flash, and darkness. The lightning left two scars, like dots, on Marija’s thigh. The lightning entered through one scar, and exited through the other. The area around them is numb – you can poke it, but it doesn’t hurt Marija. She hasn’t told anyone about it, although it would have been a good party prank. For some reason, she feels a kind of shame. This summer Marija will meet Lotte. “Sexy scars,” Lotte will say, “you have nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Marija un zibens” is a summer play about love and other kinds of pleasures, the confusing world that is getting smaller and smaller, and the torment that the mysterious force called life constantly heaps upon us.
Director: Paula Pļavniece
Text: Klāvs Mellis
Movement director: Rūdolfs Gediņš
Cast: Ance Strazda, Sandija Dovgāne, Āris Matesovičs, Reinis Boters
Recommended age 13+
The play was created at the Valmiera Summer Theatre Festival.
Family game with Dēkaiņu ģilde
Maybe one day you will see a witch on a broomstick flying through the treetops? Will you hear the princess calling for help from the top of the tower?
Come and put your sword at your side! We invite you to the crossroads of stories.
The board and outdoor role-playing game society “The Guild of Storytellers” invites big and small storytellers to play an adventure role-playing game. Look for us at the indicated time after the “!” sign.
Sinfonietta Rīga / Dzenītis / Leimane
For the second time, Sinfonietta Rīga will return to the acoustically pleasing Aknīste grain storage barn – the Sansusī pop-up concert hall. The program will feature two Latvian composers – Andris Dzenītis and Linda Leimane.
Andris Dzenītis SIN(Fonietta)
Andris Dzenītis believes that the brutal and the fragile coexist in his music. This is clearly confirmed in the chamber symphony – before the muted finale, the aggressive string passages are characterized by such indications as violento, meccanico, furioso, crescere. “In the title of my chamber symphony, I played with the meaning of the first syllable of the word Sinfonietta. SIN as a geometrically physical designation of the concept of sine, sonically – the understanding of sinusoidal sound. Sinusoid – a pre-sound, an ideal overtone-free sound wave, a primary vibration. From it, the vibration of any “composite” sound known to us is formed. It is almost not found among acoustic, natural sounds. However, there are instruments and objects whose timbre approaches such a pre-sound – for example, a piccolo flute in the high register (present in my opus), or a tuning fork. SIN – also “sin” in English. Combining these two playfully tricky meanings, it could be understood as the original sin, the original sin. If you like – as the coexistence of any pure or less pure sounds and their mutual – sinful or less sinful – relationships. The relationships of primal power, brutality and fragility are the emotional driving force of my opus. However, it is exclusively musical, a symbolic program of wordless affects, in which the presence of a specific content is not to be sought. The direction of the opus lies in the peculiarity of the instrumentation – as the musical dynamism increases, the size of the orchestra relatively decreases. (SIN)fonietta from the orchestral harmony (first stage) gradually moves towards a cohesive chamber music performance (solo flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, vibraphone and some string instruments playing together with the orchestra in the second stage). Then, gradually abandoning the harmony of some orchestral groups and remaining only with strings in the climax zone (third stage), we arrive at fragments of the sound and thematics of various instrument groups in the final phase of the piece (fourth stage). The piece is dedicated to the chamber orchestra Sinfonietta Rīga and its conductor Normunds Šnē.”
/Dāvis Eņģelis/
Linda Leimane Ray-Bows
Linda Leimane: “My new work Ray-bows is a multi-level reference to Gerard Griséz’s Vortex Temporum and Periodes in the form of a rainbow arch, 6 min – 6 min – 6 min. The hotly subjective impulses in the outer thirds of the arch are organized by seven muses: Gabriel, Daniel, Josephine, Sergei, Leonora, Ricardo and Emmanuel, while the coldly objective peak of the arch of time is marked by the red color of the rainbow color spectrum. Inspired by Griséz’s work, the composition strives for an organic connection between time proportions and sound spaces – seven quasi-spectrums like seven colors of the rainbow.”
Linda recommends listening to this concert in a wide and open field – in a not too wooded swamp or a rural clearing with a couple of oak trees in the distance, feeling the ground under your feet, the rainbow shape and colors of the composition.
Two solo
Solo I
Oskars Herliņš Obscure Races
a composition for two 8-bit game consoles Game Boy
performed by: Oskars Herliņš
Solo II
Liisa Hirsch: Quantum Well
Mauro Lanza: Predellino
Eric Wubbels: Psychomechanochrometer
Krists Auznieks: Pathmarks
performed by: pianist Robert Fleitz (USA)
HORA PLANET
Sci-Fi film
2021, 1’30 h
Have you ever felt so depressed that you wanted to find another planet to escape to? That’s the idea behind Planet HORA, an intriguing science fiction film by the Swiss theater company Theater HORA, featuring performers with cognitive disabilities.
Two workers are fed up with their daily jobs and book themselves an intergalactic vacation. They discover planets that are very different from ours and some that are quite similar – inhabited by bureaucrats, philosophers, workers or creatures who have better things to do than work. In the film, you will encounter a “time planet”, a “machine planet”, humans, robots and other fantastical creatures.
Planet HORA uses the conventions of science fiction to explore different universes and give us a new perspective on our own world – focusing on what causes people to be marginalized or undervalued. The film is a unique take on a beloved genre that draws on classic films while giving us a new understanding of space and time travel. Founded in 1993, HORA Theatre strives to embrace and showcase the extraordinary talents of people with cognitive disabilities. The theatre is named after the timekeeper, Master Horus (Michael Endes’ 1973 novel Momo), who was the inspiration for the theatre company’s first production. HORA looks at disability through creativity and artistry. From professional productions to participating in art exhibitions, group improvisations, directing, engaging in workshops and exploring all aspects of theatre in HORA’s Lab.
Sansusī Musicians’ Standoff
This will not be a fight for you, but a fight that will make your feet feel and jump. For the first time, the fight will be danceable and the participants will have mouths that will spit out harsh words even to unborn children!
Jakob Nouman Festival Band
vs.
Gapoljeri
Runā nāve
David Lang Death Speaks
You will return
I hear you
Mist is rising
Pain changes
I am walking
David Lang created the Death Speaks cycle ten years ago under the influence of his own previously composed passion The Match Seller, as well as thinking about Schubert and his song Death and the Maiden, which was in turn inspired by the poem of the same name by Matthias Claudius.
“I remembered the structure of Schubert’s wonderful song, in which the text is in two parts. In the first part of the song, the voice of a young girl is heard, praying that Death will pass by without harming her, and in the second – Death’s comforting answer. For me, it resonated with Hans Christian Andersen’s The Match Seller, which also contains these antitheses – the fear of the living versus the peace of death,” says David Lang about the sources of inspiration for the Death Speaks cycle.
Performed by:
Beāte Zviedre (voice)
Marta Spārniņa (violin)
Matīss Čudars (guitar)
Edgars Cīrulis (piano)
Ēvalds Lazarēvičs (voice)
Dawn Concert
J. S. Bach – Prelude from Cello Suite No. 1
J. Dowland – Dream
R. Diens – Tango en skai
E. Villa – Lobos Prelude 3
F. Moreno – Torroba Fandango
J. Lennon – Imagine
Bono/U2 – With or without you
K. Zemītis – Summer Nocturne
K. Zemītis – Like Birds in the Sky
E. Dārziņš – Melancholic Waltz
K. Zemītis – The Quiet of a Storm
J. S. Bach – Prelude in C major from “The Well-Tempered Clavier”
Kaspars Zemītis – guitar
KAKA UN PAVSARIS
performance based on the book by Andrus Kivirehkas
Jānis Znotiņš: “I create children’s performances to give children a meaningful lesson in which they learn something new through fooling around. In my opinion, Andrus Kivirehkas does this perfectly in his stories – he achieves a deep meaning about the order of the world with provocative foolishness.”
The performance talks about important topics in the child’s growth process – dressing, learning to read, relationships in kindergarten, etc. The stories chosen for the performance reveal connections in these processes that the child may not yet see, for example, dressing warmly – illness.
“In order to learn something, it needs to be interesting and fun.”
The target audience of the performance is children aged 4+ and primary school.
Jānis Znotiņš (director and actor)
Ance Muižniece (actress)
WallumrødPetriniWikström
This trio was formed as part of the Nordic project Puls and premiered at the Vinterjazz cinema in Copenhagen in 2019. With very different backgrounds but a common musical grammar, they explore a sonic terrain without a map or compass.
Performers:
electronics Christian Wallumrød (Norway)
voice, electronics Qarin Wikström (Sweden)
petcold fluteAnna Petrini (Sweden)
Trio Carmine
Concert program “Shimmer and Contrasts”
Darius Milhaud (1892–1974)
Suite for clarinet, violin and piano
Alban Berg (1885–1935)
Chamber concert – Adagio
Santa Ratniece (1977)
Shimmer (2012) for violin, clarinet and piano
Bela Bartok (1881–1945)
Contrasts for violin, clarinet and piano Sz. 111
Verbunkos
Piheno
Sebes
The beginnings of the trio’s activities are closely linked to Susejė, as it was here that the musicians met for their first creative residency, which was followed by many concerts in Latvia, France, Switzerland, Hungary, Denmark, as well as their debut on BBC Radio. Trio Carmine is currently expanding their knowledge with the outstanding teachers of the ECMA (European Chamber Music Academy) – actively performing European chamber musicians.
Performers:
Anna Gagan, clarinet
Magdalena Geka, violin
Lukas Loss (Switzerland), piano
Conclusion.
TOTALLY DESTROYED CELLO FIGHT
Cellos, vibrez!
Stephan Schrader – Bach aus Wasser
Guna Schnee, Anton Trotsjuks, Klāvs Jankevics, Elīza Sestule, Elīza Chaša, Sofija Ogarkova, Elfīda Švalbe, Pauls Ēriks Skujiņš
Max Bruch – Kol nidrei op.47
Guna Schnee (solo), Elīza Sestule, Elīza Chaša, Sofija Ogarkova, Elfīda Švalbe
Giovanni Sollima – Alone
Anton Trotsjuks
Svante Henryson – Black run
Guna Schnee, Klāvs Jankevics
Gabriel Faure – Elegy op. 24
Anton Trocyuk (solo), Klāvs Yankevics, Elīza Sestule, Elīza Čaša, Elfrīda Švalbe, Pauls Ēriks Skujiņš
Maurice Ravel – Bolero for ONE CELLO and FOUR CELLISTS
Guna Šnė, Klāvs Yankevics, Anton Trocyuk, Pauls Ēriks Skujiņš
Giovanni Sollima – Violoncellos, vibrez!
Anton Trocyuk and Guna Šnė (solo), Klāvs Yankevics, Elīza Sestule, Elīza Čaša, Sofija Ogarkova, Elfrīda Švalbe, Pauls Ēriks Skujiņš
Artists in residence. An artist in curatorial exile.
Sansusī Welfare Residency 2019–2022
This is not a report on the best works done. It is not really archiving either, but there is some order there, because I have divided the time that has passed in my residency into 20 stages (this number is growing rapidly). Artists came to Sansusī in all seasons and stayed for about a month. My 20 capsules of painted images are connected to these times and places, and different people. I have planted my images here, just as I myself have begun to take root over the years, in a completely foreign environment.
/Anda Lāce/
Layers. Geometric light installation in the forest.
Jurģis Peters
Sandijs Ruļuks