Bazaar Festival: DIOR IN MOSCOW / Ingrida Gerbutavičiūtė & Agnija Šeiko

An exploration of the identity of post-Soviet woman, with a focus on changes to this identity resulting from the Western experience.
The human body is a place of tradition, communication and authenticity. It listens, tells, and retells stories, shaping our identity within the context of place and time. Throughout history, changes in women’s identity have been legitimized by socioeconomic shifts. Our focus is on the specific roles of Soviet women and the multiple roles of post-Soviet women.

Performance is a part of 2017 Bazaar Festival. It takes place at Studio ALTA and it will be held in English.

Our research is based on Dr. Aneta Pavlenko’s Socioeconomic Conditions and Discursive Construction of Women’s Identities in Post-Soviet Countries (2002), which also shaped the performance’s dramatic construction. Other research involved interviews with women from the Czech Republic and Lithuania who were in their thirties when the Iron Curtain fell.

What is the identity of post-Soviet woman today? Does the “Soviet” identity still exist in the second and third generation of women? Is there such a thing as a post-Soviet identity in an era of globalisation? And if yes: How do we deal with it? We also look at the “heritage” of post-Soviet thinking in our generation and try to identify the characteristic of the Eastern way of thinking in everyday life.

Another area of interest is the study of gender identity. It is quite significant that the differences between Eastern and Western women’s bodies are stronger than the physical differences between men from the two regions. With this in mind, we have decided to study how we continue to contextualize gender and gender roles two decades after the fall of the Iron Curtain.

Idea and concept: Ingrida Gerbutavičiūtė and Agnija Šeiko
Performers: Ingrida Gerbutavičiūtė and Agnija Šeiko
Music: Antanas Jasenka
Stage designer: Sigita Šimkūnaitė
Video artist: Albena Baeva
Lighting design: Povilas Laurinaitis
Producer: Goda Giedraitytė
Produced by: the Fish Eye art group and the PADI DAPI Fish dance theater

Lithuanian choreographer Agnija Šeiko studied choreography at Klaipeda University, where she earned a BA degree. In 2006, she earned an MA from the Codarts Academy of Dance in Rotterdam. She currently runs the “PADI DAPI Fish” dance theater. She is also the author of more than 30 works of choreography, which have been performed at various dance festivals and venues both in Lithuania and abroad. As a choreographer, she has successfully collaborated with artists working in a variety of art forms. In 2009, Šeiko and the creative team of the mono-opera Izadora were named the best debut of 2008 and were awarded the Golden Cross of the Stage, Lithuania’s highest award for achievements in the world of theater. In 2012, she was named choreographer of the year by the City of Klaipeda, and the following year she received the Golden Stage Cross Award for Best Choreographer of 2012.

Dance critic and dramaturge Ingrida Gerbutavičiūtė holds a BA in German philology from Vilnius University and an MA in German linguistics, theater studies, journalism and media studies from the Free University of Berlin. Ingrida is the head of the Dance and Movement Department at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater. She regularly writes reviews for dance magazines and online dance journals in both German and Lithuanian. Since 2011, she has run the “Dance Through Word – Not[new]criticism” project, which aims to strengthen dance criticism in Lithuania and to develop an innovative form of dance reviews. Her other projects include “Critics vs. Choreographers,” which promotes artistic collaboration between young dance critics and choreographers, and the Berlin Festival “Litauen Tanzt Contemporary,” which presents contemporary Lithuanian dance to German audiences.

The Fish Eye art group has been active in Lithuanian culture for more than a decade. For the past seven years, the group has actively promoted contemporary dance in the Klaipeda region, in Lithuania, and internationally, and has created more than 20 different dance performances. The dance performances are created by a professional team of choreographers and dancers, with a special focus on performances for children. In the fall of 2012, the group’s activities resulted in the founding of the “PADI DAPI Fish” professional dance theater.

Web: www.padidapifish.lt

Premiere: February 3rd, 2016