The Night of the Nights with Kaunas Artists' House and Nightlife Residency

Published on Sunday, 23 August 2020 12:35

The Night of the Nights
Kaunas Artist's House and Nightlife Residency present
 
DJ set by Gigsta
Dance Performance Somaholidays by Vilma Pitrinaitė 
Live sound performance by Kojos Sopa
 
27 August, 9 pm
Zuikio Daržas (Nidos-Smiltynės pl. 7a) 
 
 
One of the last events within the Nightlife Events Programme takes place at the open stage of Zuikio Daržas on Thursday, 27 August. The night is ideated, plotted, and choreographed by the team of Kaunas Artists’ House in collaboration with NAC and its new Nightlife Residency programme. Both sound and dance performances will take over the night this time.
 
In the dance performance Somaholidays by Vilma Pitrinaitė, three dancers from different generations (Rasa Danilinaitė, Darius Algis Stankevičius, and Vilma Pitrinaitė) examine the theme of escapism on an assembly line at 120 beats per minute. The home-made movies from touristic trips are mixed with dance club rituals in search for means to enter a state of “somaholidays”, as described in the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. 
 
The live sound performance by Kojos Sopa juggles psychedelic melodies, rhythms, and voices inspired by satire, comedy, openness, and simplicity. The evening will begin and round up with a weightless and abstract DJ set by Gigsta.
 
The NAC Nightlife Events Programme is a series of collaborative events played out at local bars, clubs, and other friendly institutions in Nida, scattered throughout the summer. 
 
 
!!! COVID-19: Please note that wearing masks is mandatory for all events – both indoor and outdoor. Be cautious and pay attention to keep 1m of physical space from all other guests when attending the event. Please stay home if you are showing COVID-19 symptoms or suspect you have been in contact with an infected person.
 
 
Participants
 
Gigsta is a regular host on Cashmere Radio with her show Fictions, and the current participant of the NAC Nightlife Residency programme. Gigsta plays a variety of tempos, rhythms, and colors with a specific fascination for lower frequencies and the odd cut out sample. She is currently based in Berlin, where she writes her PhD thesis Techno taken at its word: electronic dance music criticism in Germany, France and the United Kingdom 1986–1999, makes zines, hosts her own Fictions parties, and is a resident at Room 4 Resistance. Gigsta’s stay in Nida is co-funded by Lithuanian Council for Culture, Goethe Institut, and the Thomas Mann Cultural Centre.
 
Vilma Pitrinaitė is a choreographer and dancer living and working between Lithuania and Belgium. She started her career in Aura dance theatre, the first contemporary dance company in Lithuania, after studying choreography at CDC de Toulouse and National Choreographic Centre of Montpellier,as well as theatre directing at National Strasbourg Conservatory. She collaborated as a dancer and actor with companies such as Zampa, François Verret, Philippe Grandrieux, Karim Bel Kacem, Hubert Colas, Vincent Thomasset, Mossoux-Bonté, and Dame de Pic. In 2013, Pitrinaitė co-founded the WE Company. 
Pitrinaitė’s dance performance Somaholidays (2018) received the Fortunos award and was nominated for the highest award in Lithuania – the Golden Cross of the Stage in the section ‘Best Dancers’ for 2019. 
 
Kojos Sopa is a composer and musician based in Kaunas. Musical experiments in the basement, architectural studies, independent experiences of weird funk, experimental and progressive music, contemporary dance, and experimental theater led him to develop a particular and experimental approach to DJjing and composing. One can call it a variety show, not aiming at a particular genre.
 
 
Organisers
 
Kaunas Artists’ House strives to keep up with the contemporary tendencies of culture and art by organizing cultural, educational events, and programmes of professional artists from Lithuania and abroad with a special focus on young artists. The event is co-curated and coordinated by curator, cultural manager, and cultural journalist Edvinas Grinkevičius as part of the NAC Nightlife Events Programme in partnership with Zuikio Daržas.
 
Nightlife Residency was developed by the Beijing based I: Project Space and The Neighborhood in 2018 to give artists working on fusion of visual art and nightclub culture time and space to focus on their productions as well as connect to the ever-growing and increasingly idiosyncratic nightclub and electronic music communities in Beijing and China. Bringing this residency format to Nida and the Baltic Region, NAC intends to open up its residencies to a broad scope of practitioners, rhythms, sounds, and visuals and contribute to twisting and broadening definitions of visual culture. 
 
Nightlife Residency in Nida is embedded within the framework of a series of night events organized by NAC to take place throughout the summer at local Nida bars and clubs. NAC has invited other art collectives, residencies and institutions from mainland Lithuania: Autarkia, DAR, CAC, Kaunas Artists' House, Lokomotif, and Rupert to each organize one event, and to collaborate, exchange, gather, and be part of Nida nightlife.
 
 
The project is co-funded by Lithuanian Council for Culture, Goethe Institut and Thomas Mann Cultural Centre.