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October 02 d., Wednesday * 20:00
Sirenos 2019 | CREATION (PICTURES FOR DORIAN)

CREATION | PICTURES FOR DORIAN GOB SQUAD (UK, DE) concept authors: Johanna Freiburg, Sean Patten, Sharon Smith, Berit Stumpf, Sarah Thom, Bastian Trost, Simon Will
dramaturgy and production: Christina Runge
lighting design: Chris Umney
sound design: Sebastian Bark, Jeff McGrory
video design: Miles Chalcraft, Noam Gorvat
costume design: Ingken Benesch
costume assistant: Claudia Gali
set realisation: Lena Mody
set realisation assistant: Julia Buntzel
artistic assistants: Mat Hand, Amina Nouns
production assistant: Ben Mohai
directing interns: Patty Kim, Amina Nouns
touring manager: Mat Hand
local assistant: Eglė Švedkauskaitė
appearance in Lithuania sponsored by: Goethe Institut Litauen duration: 120 min.
premiere: 2018, Hau Hebbel am Ufer Berlin, Germany language: English, with Lithuanian translation recommended age: 12+ date: 2, 3 October 2019, 20:00 venue: Arts Printing House, black hall (Šiltadaržio str. 6, vilnius) discussion after the performance (in English) moderator: Eglė Murauskaitė date: 2 October, 22:15 venue: Arts Printing House, café THE WORLD IS YOURS FOR A SEASON. Creation is the realm of gods and artists who create beauty through sheer will and their own bare hands. But who decides what is beautiful? And what are the concealed mechanisms of power that lie within the triangular relationship of artist, object, and viewer? At times a conversation, at times an assault on the voyeuristic nature of our social media society and its obsession with youth and beauty, this production of GOB SQUAD deals with the understanding of beauty and youth in our lives. GOB SQUAD Arts Collective have travelled the world for the past 25 years and now find themselves well and truly middle-aged, with no desire to exit the stage just yet. In “Creation (Pictures for Dorian)”, the actors of GOB SQUAD are joined onstage by a diverse group of local performers a generation younger and a generation older than themselves. Their aim? To peep behind the vanity mirror and search for answers to questions about beauty, morality, ageing, and power, and to playfully ask why they so crave the eye of the beholder. The project is inspired by Oscar Wilde’s character Dorian Gray, who meddles in the domain of the gods with the aid of a magical painting. He suspends the process of ageing and remains young and beautiful forever, at a terrible cost to his soul. “What does it mean to be visible, invisible, looked at and regarded as an object of beauty?” Simon Will, GOB SQUAD SIRENOS: MISSING CONNECTION The gaps between our-real-life-selves as opposed to our-online-selves have been constantly widening. Have we created ourselves as we create our selfies? Perhaps the world belongs to us just for a single brief season when we’re young, healthy, and beautiful? GOB SQUAD GOB SQUAD is a collective of British and German artists creating performances, installations, theatre shows, and video art since 1994. Based in Nottingham and Berlin, GOB SQUAD present their work in various urban spaces including offices, shops, train stations, hotels, as well as galleries and theatres. While merging film, TV, and pop music elements into theatre, GOB SQUAD examine our intricate and absurd contemporary world in search of beauty and meaning among the polished façades and dark alleys of contemporary culture. It is not unusual GOB SQUAD to juxtapose the visions they construct on stage to our everyday lives, which brings out the clash of theatre and “the real world”. http://www.gobsquad.com Both Lithuania and “Sirenos” will witness GOB SQUAD’s second visit: the first one was in Vilnius, with a play “Super Night Shot” in 2011.

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October 03 d., Thursday * 20:00
Sirenos 2019 | CREATION (PICTURES FOR DORIAN)

CREATION | PICTURES FOR DORIAN GOB SQUAD (UK, DE) concept authors: Johanna Freiburg, Sean Patten, Sharon Smith, Berit Stumpf, Sarah Thom, Bastian Trost, Simon Will
dramaturgy and production: Christina Runge
lighting design: Chris Umney
sound design: Sebastian Bark, Jeff McGrory
video design: Miles Chalcraft, Noam Gorvat
costume design: Ingken Benesch
costume assistant: Claudia Gali
set realisation: Lena Mody
set realisation assistant: Julia Buntzel
artistic assistants: Mat Hand, Amina Nouns
production assistant: Ben Mohai
directing interns: Patty Kim, Amina Nouns
touring manager: Mat Hand
local assistant: Eglė Švedkauskaitė
appearance in Lithuania sponsored by: Goethe Institut Litauen duration: 120 min.
premiere: 2018, Hau Hebbel am Ufer Berlin, Germany language: English, with Lithuanian translation recommended age: 12+ date: 2, 3 October 2019, 20:00 venue: Arts Printing House, black hall (Šiltadaržio str. 6, vilnius) discussion after the performance (in English) moderator: Eglė Murauskaitė date: 2 October, 22:15 venue: Arts Printing House, café THE WORLD IS YOURS FOR A SEASON. Creation is the realm of gods and artists who create beauty through sheer will and their own bare hands. But who decides what is beautiful? And what are the concealed mechanisms of power that lie within the triangular relationship of artist, object, and viewer? At times a conversation, at times an assault on the voyeuristic nature of our social media society and its obsession with youth and beauty, this production of GOB SQUAD deals with the understanding of beauty and youth in our lives. GOB SQUAD Arts Collective have travelled the world for the past 25 years and now find themselves well and truly middle-aged, with no desire to exit the stage just yet. In “Creation (Pictures for Dorian)”, the actors of GOB SQUAD are joined onstage by a diverse group of local performers a generation younger and a generation older than themselves. Their aim? To peep behind the vanity mirror and search for answers to questions about beauty, morality, ageing, and power, and to playfully ask why they so crave the eye of the beholder. The project is inspired by Oscar Wilde’s character Dorian Gray, who meddles in the domain of the gods with the aid of a magical painting. He suspends the process of ageing and remains young and beautiful forever, at a terrible cost to his soul. “What does it mean to be visible, invisible, looked at and regarded as an object of beauty?” Simon Will, GOB SQUAD SIRENOS: MISSING CONNECTION The gaps between our-real-life-selves as opposed to our-online-selves have been constantly widening. Have we created ourselves as we create our selfies? Perhaps the world belongs to us just for a single brief season when we’re young, healthy, and beautiful? GOB SQUAD GOB SQUAD is a collective of British and German artists creating performances, installations, theatre shows, and video art since 1994. Based in Nottingham and Berlin, GOB SQUAD present their work in various urban spaces including offices, shops, train stations, hotels, as well as galleries and theatres. While merging film, TV, and pop music elements into theatre, GOB SQUAD examine our intricate and absurd contemporary world in search of beauty and meaning among the polished façades and dark alleys of contemporary culture. It is not unusual GOB SQUAD to juxtapose the visions they construct on stage to our everyday lives, which brings out the clash of theatre and “the real world”. http://www.gobsquad.com Both Lithuania and “Sirenos” will witness GOB SQUAD’s second visit: the first one was in Vilnius, with a play “Super Night Shot” in 2011.

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October 06 d., Sunday * 19:00
Sirenos 2019 | MINEFIELD

Lola Arias Minefield Argentina, United Kingdom writer, director: Lola Arias
with Lou Armour, David Jackson, Gabriel Sagastume, Ruben Otero, Sukrim Rai, And Marcelo Vallejo
research & production: Sofia Medici, Luz Algranti
set: Mariana Tirantte
music: Ulises Conti
light: David Seldes
video: Martin Borini
sound engineers: Roberto Pellegrino, Ernesto Fara
costumes: Andy Piffer
production assistant: Lucila Piffer, Melisa Santoro
UK research assistant: Kate O’connor

duration: 100 min. | premiere: 2016, Lift Festival
language: English and Spanish with Lithuanian surtitles | recommended age: 14+ date: 6, 7 October 2019, 19:00 | venue: Arts Printing House, black hall (Šiltadaržio Str. 6, Vilnius) discussion after the performance (in English)
moderator: Donatas Puslys
date: 6 October, 21:00
venue: Arts Printing House, cafe “Minefield” is a project that reunites Argentine and British veterans from the Falklands/Malvinas war to explore what is left of it in their heads 37 years later. In a film set turned into a time machine the ones who fought are teleported into the past to reconstruct their war and aftermath memories. Lou Armour was on the cover of every newspaper when the Argentines took him prisoner on April 2nd and is now a special needs teacher. Rubén Otero survived the sinking of ARA General Belgrano and has now a Beatles tribute band. David Jackson spent his time at war listening and transcribing radio codes and now listens to other veterans in his psychology practice. Gabriel Sagastume was a soldier who never wanted to shoot and is now a criminal attorney. Sukrim Rai was a Ghurka who knew how to use his knife and works currently as a security guard. Marcelo Vallejo was an aimer for mortar and is now a triathlon champion. The only thing they have in common is that they are veterans. But what is a veteran; a survivor, a hero, a madman? The project confronts different visions of war bringing together old enemies to tell one single story. Minefield looks into the marks left by war, the relationship between experience and fiction and the thousand ways of representing memory. SIRENOS: MISSING CONNECTION Human memory is subjective and easily manipulated, so can we recreate it when looking for connections with our own selves of the past? We can do it by watching ourselves from a distance, in our youth, healthy and without scars, fighting for some political reason that an ideology has thrown at us, serving our country, family, and friends on the battlefield. We see people who are asked to be themselves on stage, without representing a military unit or country, talking about the things that are important for them right now and remembering their scars, experiences, miracles of survival. When you start to remember, you never know what you will find. Sometimes something explodes that you didn’t even know was there. LOLA ARIAS Lola Arias is a writer, theatre director, and performer. Within the fields of literature, music, cinema, theatre, and visual arts, she works with different communities: war veterans, former communists, children, prostitutes, street musicians, etc. Her creations focus on the dialogue between reality (documentary) and fiction. Lola Arias treats individual lives as historic documents that can tell us so much, often more than any history book. She has been working with documentary theatre since 2007, delving deeper into the political and social context through her famous theatre plays and the personal stories in them. Six authentic biographies are the base for the play My life after (2009), where actors recreate the youth days of their parents during the dictatorship period of Argentina; That Enemy Within (2010) is a play on identity, created in collaboration with identical twins; The Year I Was Born (2012) is based on biographical stories of the people who were born during the Pinochet period; Melancholy And Manifestations (2012) is a very personal work about her mother’s depression (the piece was presented in a staged reading at Lithuanian National Drama Theatre in 2018, during the “Versmė“ festival of contemporary dramaturgy). The artist is also involved in movies and installations. Together with Stefan Kaegi from the German theatre collective Rimini Protokoll, she has initiated and took part in several projects of urban interventions. Lola Arias creates and plays music with Ulises Conti; she has also published a few poetry and prose books, written plays. Her works have been shown across the world stages and festivals of Europe and South America. www.lolaarias.com arts printing house | black hall tickets at the box offices of TIKETA* (buy online here) * TIKETA box office can be found in the Arts Printing House ** Important notice! People who are late will not be allowed inside if it disturbs the performance

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October 07 d., Monday * 19:00
Sirenos 2019 | MINEFIELD

Lola Arias Minefield Argentina, United Kingdom writer, director: Lola Arias
with Lou Armour, David Jackson, Gabriel Sagastume, Ruben Otero, Sukrim Rai, And Marcelo Vallejo
research & production: Sofia Medici, Luz Algranti
set: Mariana Tirantte
music: Ulises Conti
light: David Seldes
video: Martin Borini
sound engineers: Roberto Pellegrino, Ernesto Fara
costumes: Andy Piffer
production assistant: Lucila Piffer, Melisa Santoro
UK research assistant: Kate O’connor

duration: 100 min. | premiere: 2016, Lift Festival
language: English and Spanish with Lithuanian surtitles | recommended age: 14+ date: 6, 7 October 2019, 19:00 | venue: Arts Printing House, black hall (Šiltadaržio Str. 6, Vilnius) discussion after the performance (in English)
moderator: Donatas Puslys
date: 6 October, 21:00
venue: Arts Printing House, cafe “Minefield” is a project that reunites Argentine and British veterans from the Falklands/Malvinas war to explore what is left of it in their heads 37 years later. In a film set turned into a time machine the ones who fought are teleported into the past to reconstruct their war and aftermath memories. Lou Armour was on the cover of every newspaper when the Argentines took him prisoner on April 2nd and is now a special needs teacher. Rubén Otero survived the sinking of ARA General Belgrano and has now a Beatles tribute band. David Jackson spent his time at war listening and transcribing radio codes and now listens to other veterans in his psychology practice. Gabriel Sagastume was a soldier who never wanted to shoot and is now a criminal attorney. Sukrim Rai was a Ghurka who knew how to use his knife and works currently as a security guard. Marcelo Vallejo was an aimer for mortar and is now a triathlon champion. The only thing they have in common is that they are veterans. But what is a veteran; a survivor, a hero, a madman? The project confronts different visions of war bringing together old enemies to tell one single story. Minefield looks into the marks left by war, the relationship between experience and fiction and the thousand ways of representing memory. SIRENOS: MISSING CONNECTION Human memory is subjective and easily manipulated, so can we recreate it when looking for connections with our own selves of the past? We can do it by watching ourselves from a distance, in our youth, healthy and without scars, fighting for some political reason that an ideology has thrown at us, serving our country, family, and friends on the battlefield. We see people who are asked to be themselves on stage, without representing a military unit or country, talking about the things that are important for them right now and remembering their scars, experiences, miracles of survival. When you start to remember, you never know what you will find. Sometimes something explodes that you didn’t even know was there. LOLA ARIAS Lola Arias is a writer, theatre director, and performer. Within the fields of literature, music, cinema, theatre, and visual arts, she works with different communities: war veterans, former communists, children, prostitutes, street musicians, etc. Her creations focus on the dialogue between reality (documentary) and fiction. Lola Arias treats individual lives as historic documents that can tell us so much, often more than any history book. She has been working with documentary theatre since 2007, delving deeper into the political and social context through her famous theatre plays and the personal stories in them. Six authentic biographies are the base for the play My life after (2009), where actors recreate the youth days of their parents during the dictatorship period of Argentina; That Enemy Within (2010) is a play on identity, created in collaboration with identical twins; The Year I Was Born (2012) is based on biographical stories of the people who were born during the Pinochet period; Melancholy And Manifestations (2012) is a very personal work about her mother’s depression (the piece was presented in a staged reading at Lithuanian National Drama Theatre in 2018, during the “Versmė“ festival of contemporary dramaturgy). The artist is also involved in movies and installations. Together with Stefan Kaegi from the German theatre collective Rimini Protokoll, she has initiated and took part in several projects of urban interventions. Lola Arias creates and plays music with Ulises Conti; she has also published a few poetry and prose books, written plays. Her works have been shown across the world stages and festivals of Europe and South America. www.lolaarias.com arts printing house | black hall tickets at the box offices of TIKETA* (buy online here) * TIKETA box office can be found in the Arts Printing House ** Important notice! People who are late will not be allowed inside if it disturbs the performance

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October 09 d., Wednesday * 18:00, 20:30
Sirenos 2019 | BE CAREFUL

BE CAREFUL Mallika Taneja (India) devised and performed by: Mallika Taneja
international touring: Ligne Directe (France)
tour and production manager: Smriti George
duration: 45 min. | premiere: 2013. performance was first created at the Tadpole Repertory as part of their show “NDLS”.
language: English, with Lithuanian surtitles | recommended age: 18+ date: 9, 10 October 2019, 18:00 and 20:30 | venue: Arts Printing House, pocket hall (Šiltadaržio str. 6, vilnius) discussion after the performance (in English)
moderator: Roberta Tracevičiūtė
date: 9 October, 21:30
venue: Arts Printing House, café “WE DO HAVE THE POWER TO SAY NO. […] IF WE DON’T SAY NO TO THE THINGS HAPPENING TO US, WHO WILL?” Be careful. This is what is said to girls and women in reference to their behaviour, their attitudes, and their clothes. This seemingly innocent phrase also implies a principle that is deeply rooted in many cultures: security is a woman’s own responsibility. This presumption diminishes the responsibility of the other, aggressive and abusive party. Mallika Taneja, actor and director, sets on dissecting this very presumption in her play. The work by Mallika is first and foremost about widespread sexual violence in India and the role that clothes ‘play’ in ‘provoking’ it. Or do they? In India, as in other countries, being on guard is a central part of the female experience of life. Taneja, who lives and works in Delhi, denounces before her audience all the hypocrisy imbedded in a vision of women as potential victims. Although it is hard for an individual women to say no to the norms of family and society, although it seems like this would not change the big picture, it is exactly this type of rebellion – unseen yet significant – that is seeing so many young Indian women come out of the shadows and assert their rights. With the help of French production agency Ligne Directe, which organizes international touring for the show, this is the first theatre play from India presented in Lithuania. SIRENOS: MISSING CONNECTION In Lithuania, #metoo movement had a sharp rise in 2017 with famous male artists and pliticians being at the epicentre; yet today it seems to have subsided and is no longer in the public eye. Is it gone or is it waiting awaiting another explosion? Can we witness the process of change in the relations between men and women? What are the ripple effects of #metoo 2017? I can understand discomfort. I don’t think I understand offense. Mallika Taneja MALLIKA TANEJA Mallika Taneja is a theatre artist living and working in New Delhi. Through performances and interventions, she attempts to understand what equality means, how it operates, and how each body may defy the unjust power structures. In India, she also organises Midnight Walks – women stroll around the city past midnight, a time at which most would not dare to venture. In 2015, Mallika Taneja received a ZKB Acknowledgement award from the Spektake theatre in Zurich (for the play Be careful). LIGNE DIRECTE Ligne Directe draws a direct line between theatrical artists and stages of the whole wide world. The team has a mission to reveal artistic universes and unique performances, gathering the necessary means to develop the productions, tours, publications, and research laboratories. arts printing house | pocket hall tickets at the box offices of TIKETA* (buy online here) * TIKETA box office can be found in the Arts Printing House ** Important notice! People who are late will not be allowed inside if it disturbs the performance

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October 10 d., Thursday * 18:00, 20:30
Sirenos 2019 | BE CAREFUL

BE CAREFUL Mallika Taneja (India) devised and performed by: Mallika Taneja
international touring: Ligne Directe (France)
tour and production manager: Smriti George
duration: 45 min. | premiere: 2013. performance was first created at the Tadpole Repertory as part of their show “NDLS”.
language: English, with Lithuanian surtitles | recommended age: 18+ date: 9, 10 October 2019, 18:00 and 20:30 | venue: Arts Printing House, pocket hall (Šiltadaržio str. 6, vilnius) discussion after the performance (in English)
moderator: Roberta Tracevičiūtė
date: 9 October, 21:30
venue: Arts Printing House, café “WE DO HAVE THE POWER TO SAY NO. […] IF WE DON’T SAY NO TO THE THINGS HAPPENING TO US, WHO WILL?” Be careful. This is what is said to girls and women in reference to their behaviour, their attitudes, and their clothes. This seemingly innocent phrase also implies a principle that is deeply rooted in many cultures: security is a woman’s own responsibility. This presumption diminishes the responsibility of the other, aggressive and abusive party. Mallika Taneja, actor and director, sets on dissecting this very presumption in her play. The work by Mallika is first and foremost about widespread sexual violence in India and the role that clothes ‘play’ in ‘provoking’ it. Or do they? In India, as in other countries, being on guard is a central part of the female experience of life. Taneja, who lives and works in Delhi, denounces before her audience all the hypocrisy imbedded in a vision of women as potential victims. Although it is hard for an individual women to say no to the norms of family and society, although it seems like this would not change the big picture, it is exactly this type of rebellion – unseen yet significant – that is seeing so many young Indian women come out of the shadows and assert their rights. With the help of French production agency Ligne Directe, which organizes international touring for the show, this is the first theatre play from India presented in Lithuania. SIRENOS: MISSING CONNECTION In Lithuania, #metoo movement had a sharp rise in 2017 with famous male artists and pliticians being at the epicentre; yet today it seems to have subsided and is no longer in the public eye. Is it gone or is it waiting awaiting another explosion? Can we witness the process of change in the relations between men and women? What are the ripple effects of #metoo 2017? I can understand discomfort. I don’t think I understand offense. Mallika Taneja MALLIKA TANEJA Mallika Taneja is a theatre artist living and working in New Delhi. Through performances and interventions, she attempts to understand what equality means, how it operates, and how each body may defy the unjust power structures. In India, she also organises Midnight Walks – women stroll around the city past midnight, a time at which most would not dare to venture. In 2015, Mallika Taneja received a ZKB Acknowledgement award from the Spektake theatre in Zurich (for the play Be careful). LIGNE DIRECTE Ligne Directe draws a direct line between theatrical artists and stages of the whole wide world. The team has a mission to reveal artistic universes and unique performances, gathering the necessary means to develop the productions, tours, publications, and research laboratories. arts printing house | pocket hall tickets at the box offices of TIKETA* (buy online here) * TIKETA box office can be found in the Arts Printing House ** Important notice! People who are late will not be allowed inside if it disturbs the performance

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October 11 d., Friday * 19:00
Sirenos 2019 | TAHA. A POET'S LIFE

TAHA. A POET’S LIFE
Amer Hlehel, Amir Nizar Zuabi (Palestine) written and performed by: Amer Hlehel
director and translator: Amir Nizar Zuabi
designer: Ashraf Hanna
composer: Habib Shehadeh Hanna
lighting designer: Muaz Jubeh
supported by the A. M. Qattan Foundation Translated poems are from “So What: New and Selected Poems, 1971-2005”, translated by Peter Cole, Yahya Hijazi, and Gabriel Levin (Copper Canyon Press, 2006), and used with the permission of the translators. duration: 70 min. | premiere: 2017 at the Kennedy Center, Washington DC, USA
language: English and Arab, with Lithuanian and English surtitles | recommended age: 15+ date: 11, 12 October 2019, 19:00 | venue: Arts Printing House, Black Hall (Šiltadaržio str. 6, Vilnius) discussion after the performance (in English)
moderator: Roberta Tracevičiūtė
date: 11 October, 20:25
venue: Arts Printing House, Café WITH THIS SMALL PENCIL
I WILL DRAW THE WORLD
I WILL WRITE THE WORLD Taha Muhammad Ali Based on from Adina Hoffman’s book “My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness” and inspired by the life of the Palestinian poet Taha Muhammad Ali, this play is first and foremost a moving work that looks back over the artist’s life and work. His poetry speaks of the experiences of refugees and of the 1.5 million Palestinians who remained in Israel after the 1948-1949 War of Independence. The play is more of a celebration of the triumph of life than a reflection of a poet’s tragedy. It reconstitutes this man’s life, which was full of hope in spite of losing his house, his love, and his friends during 50 difficult years. Alone on stage, the Palestinian writer and performer Amer Hlehel gives a tour de force performance, bringing Taha back to life with extraordinary stage presence, full of emotion, humour and humanity, which is completely disarming. SIRENOS: MISSING CONNECTION The endless longing for the lost past – people, places, smells and sounds that are gone and will never be with us again is something universal, moving and easy to relate to. Taha creates his world with a pencil by writing poetry and through the poems as well as a fabulous actor Amer Hlehel the audience is transported to a village of Saffuriya in Palestine, which no longer exists. The play is full of joy of life and humour, which is juxtaposed to the dramatic turn of events in the poet’s life. “During the process (of creation), I slowly began to feel that the right way to tell a poet’s story – considering that Taha was a great storyteller – is to let him tell us the story himself, and to let him tell it alone. I see poets as witnesses to human life, and they need an environment of loneliness to recreate the life they experience in the most economical form of art, poetry”. Amer Hlehel AMER HLEHEL Amer Hlehel is an actor, director and playwright based in Haifa. He has written several plays, including “Taha” (Best Production – Asian Arts Award – Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2017). He has appeared in numerous productions, including as Caliban in Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” in David Farr’s production at the Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-on-Avon; as Abu Altayib in “Goats” at The Royal Court Theatre, London. Hlehel’s film work includes Palestinian films: “Personal Affairs”, “The Idol”, “The Time that Remains”, “Amreeka”, “Man Without a Cell Phone”, and the Golden Globe award-winning “Paradise Now”. AMIR NIZAR ZUABI Amir Nizar Zuabi is without doubt one of the most influential directors in the Middle East today. His first production in Ramallah brought him immediate international success. Mono play Taha. A Poet’s Life has been around the world, introducing various countries to Taha’s poetry in its original language (translation from Arabic is in the subtitles). TAHA MUHAMMAD ALI Palestinian poet Taha Muhammad Ali was born in 1931 and grew up in Saffuriya, Galilee, Palestine. During the Arab-Israeli war in 1948 (the Nakba – the Palestinian Catastrophe), he was forced to flee with his family to Lebanon for a year; they snuck back, and since then he has lived in Nazareth, where he owns a souvenir shop. In the 1950s and 1960s, he sold souvenirs during the day to Christian pilgrims, and studied poetry at night. His formal education ended after fourth grade. Self-taught through his readings of classical Arabic literature, American fiction, and English poetry, Ali started writing poems in the 1970s. His collections in English include Never Mind: Twenty Poems and a Story (2000) and So What: New and Selected Poems (2006). In a direct, sometimes humorous, and often devastating style, Ali combines personal and political elements as he details both village life and the upheaval of conflict. He died in 2011, in Nazareth. http://as-is-arts.com arts printing house | black hall tickets at the box offices of TIKETA* (buy online here) * TIKETA box office can be found in the Arts Printing House ** Important notice! People who are late will not be allowed inside if it disturbs the performance

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October 11 d., Friday * 17:00
International residency. Aloun Marchal | SonoR

Arts Printing House international residency programme introduces Aloun Marchal.

French improviser, dancer and choreographer Aloun Marchal is currently living between Gothenburg and Paris. During the residency at the Arts Printing House, Aloun and his team of four dancers are developing their brand new piece 'SonoR'. It is a sound and dance piece where the four performers are producing live the soundscape and the dance, equipped with wireless mics. The research is about reinventing your stage identity as a performer and as a collective, through body work, and sound work. The piece itself drifts from contemporary dance to concert and grotesque action based performance.

date and time: October 11, 5 p.m. | location: studio III | duration: 50' | free admission the residency is supported by Institut Français de Lituanie

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October 12 d., Saturday * 19:00
Sirenos 2019 | TAHA. A POET'S LIFE

TAHA. A POET’S LIFE
Amer Hlehel, Amir Nizar Zuabi (Palestine) written and performed by: Amer Hlehel
director and translator: Amir Nizar Zuabi
designer: Ashraf Hanna
composer: Habib Shehadeh Hanna
lighting designer: Muaz Jubeh
supported by the A. M. Qattan Foundation Translated poems are from “So What: New and Selected Poems, 1971-2005”, translated by Peter Cole, Yahya Hijazi, and Gabriel Levin (Copper Canyon Press, 2006), and used with the permission of the translators. duration: 70 min. | premiere: 2017 at the Kennedy Center, Washington DC, USA
language: English and Arab, with Lithuanian and English surtitles | recommended age: 15+ date: 11, 12 October 2019, 19:00 | venue: Arts Printing House, Black Hall (Šiltadaržio str. 6, Vilnius) discussion after the performance (in English)
moderator: Roberta Tracevičiūtė
date: 11 October, 20:25
venue: Arts Printing House, Café WITH THIS SMALL PENCIL
I WILL DRAW THE WORLD
I WILL WRITE THE WORLD Taha Muhammad Ali Based on from Adina Hoffman’s book “My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness” and inspired by the life of the Palestinian poet Taha Muhammad Ali, this play is first and foremost a moving work that looks back over the artist’s life and work. His poetry speaks of the experiences of refugees and of the 1.5 million Palestinians who remained in Israel after the 1948-1949 War of Independence. The play is more of a celebration of the triumph of life than a reflection of a poet’s tragedy. It reconstitutes this man’s life, which was full of hope in spite of losing his house, his love, and his friends during 50 difficult years. Alone on stage, the Palestinian writer and performer Amer Hlehel gives a tour de force performance, bringing Taha back to life with extraordinary stage presence, full of emotion, humour and humanity, which is completely disarming. SIRENOS: MISSING CONNECTION The endless longing for the lost past – people, places, smells and sounds that are gone and will never be with us again is something universal, moving and easy to relate to. Taha creates his world with a pencil by writing poetry and through the poems as well as a fabulous actor Amer Hlehel the audience is transported to a village of Saffuriya in Palestine, which no longer exists. The play is full of joy of life and humour, which is juxtaposed to the dramatic turn of events in the poet’s life. “During the process (of creation), I slowly began to feel that the right way to tell a poet’s story – considering that Taha was a great storyteller – is to let him tell us the story himself, and to let him tell it alone. I see poets as witnesses to human life, and they need an environment of loneliness to recreate the life they experience in the most economical form of art, poetry”. Amer Hlehel AMER HLEHEL Amer Hlehel is an actor, director and playwright based in Haifa. He has written several plays, including “Taha” (Best Production – Asian Arts Award – Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2017). He has appeared in numerous productions, including as Caliban in Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” in David Farr’s production at the Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-on-Avon; as Abu Altayib in “Goats” at The Royal Court Theatre, London. Hlehel’s film work includes Palestinian films: “Personal Affairs”, “The Idol”, “The Time that Remains”, “Amreeka”, “Man Without a Cell Phone”, and the Golden Globe award-winning “Paradise Now”. AMIR NIZAR ZUABI Amir Nizar Zuabi is without doubt one of the most influential directors in the Middle East today. His first production in Ramallah brought him immediate international success. Mono play Taha. A Poet’s Life has been around the world, introducing various countries to Taha’s poetry in its original language (translation from Arabic is in the subtitles). TAHA MUHAMMAD ALI Palestinian poet Taha Muhammad Ali was born in 1931 and grew up in Saffuriya, Galilee, Palestine. During the Arab-Israeli war in 1948 (the Nakba – the Palestinian Catastrophe), he was forced to flee with his family to Lebanon for a year; they snuck back, and since then he has lived in Nazareth, where he owns a souvenir shop. In the 1950s and 1960s, he sold souvenirs during the day to Christian pilgrims, and studied poetry at night. His formal education ended after fourth grade. Self-taught through his readings of classical Arabic literature, American fiction, and English poetry, Ali started writing poems in the 1970s. His collections in English include Never Mind: Twenty Poems and a Story (2000) and So What: New and Selected Poems (2006). In a direct, sometimes humorous, and often devastating style, Ali combines personal and political elements as he details both village life and the upheaval of conflict. He died in 2011, in Nazareth. http://as-is-arts.com arts printing house | black hall tickets at the box offices of TIKETA* (buy online here) * TIKETA box office can be found in the Arts Printing House ** Important notice! People who are late will not be allowed inside if it disturbs the performance

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October 17 d., Thursday * 18:00, 20:00
Opera HAVE A GOOD DAY!

Opera for 10 cashiers, supermarket sounds and piano | duration 50' (no intermission) Concept by Vaiva Grainytė, Lina Lapelytė, Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė Librettist Vaiva Grainytė Composer and music director Lina Lapelytė Director and set designer Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė Lighting designer Eugenijus Sabaliauskas Costume designer Daiva Samajauskaitė Sound director Arūnas Zujus Producer OPEROMANIJA Cashiers: Indrė Anankaitė-Kalašnikovienė, Liucina Blaževič, Vida Valuckienė, Anna Miščenko, Lina Valionienė, Rima Šovienė, Milda Zapolskaitė, Rita Račiūnienė, Svetlana Bagdonaitė, Kristina Svolkinaitė Security Guard: Edgar Sabilo (piano) The opera focuses on the inner lives of cashiers in a shopping centre: showing what lies behind their mechanical ‘Good afternoon!’, ‘Thank you!’, ‘Have a good day!’ and fake smiles. It transforms the faceless, robot-like shop workers found in everyday life into unique and lively characters, whereas their secret thoughts and biographies turn into short, personal dramas. The characters of diverse sales clerks, embodying universal archetypes, convey the predominant social landscape. The libretto represents a revealing mosaic of spoken, literary language and documentary. The atmosphere of the supermarket is established through the glimmering and buzzing installation of daylight lamps and environmental sounds, connecting the audience to the stage and the 10 cashiers. The set itself is very minimalist. Real goods – the recognizable décor of a shopping centre – exist only in acoustic and verbal form. The monotonous beep heard each time an item is scanned is a key sound throughout the whole opera. It may be louder or quieter, but it is always present. Songs that accompany the beeping are as monotonous as the very process of shopping and selling. Instead of becoming the main point of the opera, the music serves the thoughts of the cashiers – it facilitates their voice. To avoid any moral or judgemental suggestion, critical attitude towards capitalism is expressed through humour, paradox, irony and poetry. The mosaic of different destinies transforms into a single poem suggesting the pleasure of consumption. In 2013, Have a Good Day! was selected by an International Theatre Institute (ITI) jury for a presentation at the finals of the worldwide competition Music Theatre NOW (Biennial for Performing Arts, Jönköping, Sweden), where the work was awarded the Globe Teana-Theatre Observation prize. In 2014, Have a Good Day! was awarded the Golden Stage Cross prize for the best Lithuanian Authors’ Performance and has also garnered two prizes at the Baltic Theatre Festival. In 2015, the opera was awarded the Main Prize of the Fast Forward festival in Braunschweig (Germany). The performance has been presented at diverse music, theatre and opera festivals in Lithuania, United States, China, Russia, Latvia, Estonia, France, Germany, Switzerland, Ukraine, Portugal, The Netherlands and Italy. The opera was also broadcasted on Lithuanian National Radio and BBC Radio 3.
Press on “Have a Good Day!”

Steve Smith, The New York Times:
Clever, charming and quietly subversive. Whatever critique of capitalist entrapment and consumerist obsession might be implied is conveyed with subtlety and wit.

Justin Davidson, New York Magazine:
It’s a tour de force of deadpan comedy....comes wrapped in a score of incantatory, almost liturgical serenity.

Heidi Waleson, The Wall Street Journal:
...minimalist textures that evoke the swirl of everyday life – banality transformed into art. The opera is witty and poignant.

Alex Ross, The New Yorker:
A tightly constructed, multi-layered creation, its humor pierced by melancholy.

Jonas Mekas, www.jonasmekas.com :
It's like a mini masterpiece. It's just nothing to take away, nothing to add – it's very solid, very simple and very real.
arts printing house | black hall tickets 20 eur | tickets available at the box-offices of Tiketa (buy here)

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October 18 d., Friday * 19:00
OH-2 (premiere!)

Christine Bonansea OH-2 concept / choreography: Christine Bonansea | performance: AURA Dance Theatre | original music composition: Nicole Carroll | graphic programming: Yoann Trellu | light design: Asier Solana premiere: 2019 | duration: 60 min AURA Dance Theatre

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October 24 d., Thursday * 19:00
OPEROMANIJA: Sound installation-performance OLYMPIAN MACHINE

duration: 60' | language: Lithuanian without surtitles author of idea and sound editing Arturas Bumšteinas | sound recording director Ramūnas Jasutis | video projection by Ervinas Gresevičius | sound engineer of the performance: Ignas Juzokas producer: OPEROMANIJA participants: Darja Lyzenko, Daumantas Ciunis, Domas Raibys, Eglė Strackaitė-Kalendra, Greta Grinevičiūtė, Karolis Vyšniauskas, Kristina Agintaitė, Marija Simona Šimulynaitė, Marius Povilas Elijus Martynenko, Mindaugas Urbaitis, Rūta Junevičiūtė, Žilvinas Andriušis premiere: April 17, 2018, Arts Printing House, Vilnius, 7th Contemporary Opera Festival NOA (New Opera Action) “Olympian Machine” is a work for 12 voices, presented as a radiophonic sound installation consisting of 12 loudspeakers. During the recording, the participants of the piece were invited to the sound studio for one hour. Each individual was read a brief summary of Homer's “Iliad”, after which each participant was asked to comment on what (s)he remembered from the text that (s)he had heard. Various personal deviations from the text of “Iliad” were welcome, but not encouraged in any way, seeking to preserve the spontaneity of the subjective associations. This piece presents to the audience a polylogue of voices that review issues of history, memory, and communication. “<...> In addition to every myth ever told, there is one more, the not nameable, untold one. The other, which keeps waving from the shadows, emerges only in the form of allusions, fragments, and coincidences, without anyone who would dare to tell it as a single story.” (Robert Calasso, “The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony”) In 2019 Arturas Bumšteinas was awarded special prize for the innovative and original solutions at the Lithuanian professional theatre awards – “Borisas Dauguvietis Earring” for the integration of audible experiments into new theatre forms (for the performances “Olympian Machine” and “Bad Weather”). supporters: Lithuanian Council for Culture, Vilnius City Municipality partner: Audiovisual Arts Industry Incubator tickets: 7 € | tickets at the box offices of TIKETA (buy online)

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October 25 d., Friday * 19:00
Visual dance performance GAME OVER

duration 55' Authors: Lauryna Liepaitė, Airida Gudaitė ir Laurynas Žakevičius, Povilas Laurinaitis, Adas Gecevičius Vilnius city dance teater > Low Air Urban Dance theater | www.lowair.lt

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