Inga Galinytė (Lithuania) and Anna Papathanasiou (Greece/Canada)
Empathetic body: march at the beat of your own drum
Part II
Performance
Inga Galinytė and Anna Papathanasiou started working together after meeting in 2018 at the Watermill Centre in New York (USA) under the direction of Robert Wilson. The artists founded a long-term relationship project ‘FTIJs’ (FIRST TIME IN JACUZZI. sorry.).
They started an online daily correspondence that gradually took the form of an audiovisual shared diary of collected data, consisting of texts, images, sounds and movements. The daily practice of remaining loyal to an idea or a significant other brought them to the exploration of the utmost fundamental act of separation that every single being undergoes during a lifetime – the separation from the mother’s womb and the phenomenon of the trauma manifested as a bruise.
The newly conceived performance for the 12th Kaunas biennial is the third physical display of this long-term relationship project. The performance will last for the whole time of Kaunas Biennial and consists of three parts that moves from a personal story of a bruise to the traumatic history of Kaunas city.
Performance “Empathetic body: march at the beat of your own drum” part I was shown at the Grand Opening Weekend of the Kaunas Biennial.
The second part will take place on:
4 July, 7 pm-10 pm
18 July, 7 pm-10 pm
8 August, 7 pm-10 pm
22 August, 7 pm-10 pm
5 September, 7 pm-10 pm
19 September, 7 pm-10 pm
The second part of the performance moves from personal story to the traumatic history of the Kaunas city. During the biennial period, performing alone, Inga initiates a dialogue with the audience and becomes a medium connecting the visitors’ experience with the meaning of a bruise. Each newly learned or shared experience of trauma is going to be inscribed into a platform that also functions as a public place for people to contemplate and meditate on their experiences of trauma.
During these performative meetings the audience is welcomed to be an active part and become performers them-self by inscribing their own thoughts.