Social art. Notes from the 1st day of the Valmiera summer theater festival / Article

Just for a moment

It is the white “lenon glasses”, scattered in the streets of Valmiera in the form of environmental objects, that punctuate the events of the festival. This year, for the first time, round glasses are associated with the former peace messenger John Lennon and his calm voice, which invited us to imagine what it would be like if all people in the world lived in peace and harmony. Really, what would it be like if, when you see the sunflower that has turned its face to the August sun, your face doesn’t get darker? What if, when we see two dark silhouettes of storks circling above the show park, our thoughts would not be circled in a chain of associations that lead back to the topic of the smoldering eve of the third world war, making us internally ask ourselves the question, do I have the right to enjoy this moment of peace and art and forget?

Before the show has even started, when the person sitting next to her sees a circle tattoo on her forearm, the answer comes by itself. Any point can be a start. And just like that, anyone can turn out to be the end point. The summer theater is a kind of circle line – a year cycle and a carousel of emotions. When going to Valmiera, it goes without saying that the intention is to sit in this summer attraction and hope for the inner magical effect created by the external movement. To be away from your usual routine while entrusting yourself to the creators of the theater. Trusting that the possible tectonic movements caused by the theater’s new works will make each of us a little more visible. Just for a moment.

The festival was opened with a moment of victory on the evening of August 4: the earlier “larks” of the festival gathered in the August sunset scenography on the sports field of Valmiera 2nd Secondary School could watch the choreographically intense show of director Valters Sílis and movement artist Kristīnes Brīniņa about football (and, it should be added, in general – also about life ) “Victory is a moment”. True, it premiered at the festival already in 2020 and brought the director the “Gamers’ Night 2020/2021” award “Director of the Year”, and the choreographer – the “Movement Artist of the Year” nomination.

Rooted in the archeology of documentary events about the bright match of the Latvian men’s football team against the Turkish national team, the show not only draws parallels between theater and big sports, but also makes you think about the decisive moments of your life. Because, as the actors say, there are only a few truly happy and truly unhappy moments in life. Can we see them?

A moment to listen

The art of the moment is also the summer theater itself, after which the audience goes to Valmiera for the seventh year, becoming a theater-loving community that gathers in the courtyards of multi-storey buildings, parking lots, hangars, apple orchards, schools, Gaujmala and stadiums. Last year, the visitors of the cross-country festival were guided by the joint work of playwright Ances Muižniece and stage designer Pamela Butānes – the listening show for families “Urbānais safari”, whose paths of different generations can be walked again this year. This summer, the festival itself has also gone outside the city, expanding its area of magical influence. With the story of a commune settled in the park of Valmiermuiža, intended for families, this year the festival also begins for me. Arriving at the traveling show “Hamock Commune”, the audience has already become participants of the trek. The idea for the play of the young director Sabīne Alisa Ozoliņa was born in Valmiermuiž, when in previous years she participated in the Children and Youth Theater Institute organized by the festival, and there the play also meets the young and old spectators of the festival, before that this summer it also managed to highlight other venues.

The sun melts thoughts, butterflies spin in a dance, truck trailers rattle on the nearby ring road, sirens wail in the distance, a car roars, another hangs out laundry, a dog walks in, a baby cries, but in the middle of it all, a blue-pink sleeper or hammock swings between two trees. Somewhere in the same neighborhood, the hammock embodied the story in two other places, dividing the audience who came to the show into three smaller groups.

At the same time, at each stop, the actors Endīne Bērziņa, Matīss Millers and Įrts Dubults at times even acrobatically act out their own story in the expressive language of object theater. It tells the story of a child who, like his travel bag, yoga mat, yellow raincoat, toothbrush and even metal utensils inherited from the Soviet era and other loyal but not so peaceful co-existing companions, would like to go on a hike, but nowhere further than his has not taken a yard step yet. Things are said here very wittily and in such a human way that you can even recognize characters you know in what is said. For children, the show stirs the imagination and encourages them to take responsibility for what they have “tamed” themselves (even if they are objects that speak maybe only at midnight), but for adults it allows them to laugh in their beards at their sometimes so selfishly ridiculous behavior and too right or left stance. In other words, opens the door to freer thought through self-irony.

Together with the playwright Anci Muižniec and the choreographer Laura Gorodko, the director Sabine Alise Ozoliņa has created a sad funny or funny sad story, a bit about loneliness and shyness, but even more about the fine art of relationships with oneself and the ability to live with each other, despite different characters. which is possessed by everyone in the Small Things union of the show, in which the smallest hiking belongings are united and which big things are not solved, and by each of us. The ability to live in a world full of diversity is becoming almost a prerequisite for survival today.

Waiting for the right moment

The different characters, who collide and move away in different geometric variations, are the basis of the 21st-century mildly absurd play “Rinda” by the director Tom Treinas, the dramaturgy of which was created by Rasa Bugavičute-Pēce in collaboration with the actors. The idea, which broke away from the queues at the supermarket caused by the restrictions of the pandemic, gathers people of different times, generations and experiences in one line. Actors Eduards Johansons, Anna Nele Āboliņa, Meynards Liepiņš, Rihards Jakovels, Diāna Krista Stafecka, Janus Johansons, Inese Ramute, Āirts Rāviņš, Ilze Pukinska are waiting for their Godot together. In the seeming inaction of standing in a queue, an emotionally heightened dramaturgy of life is brought, which between the lines and fragments of text, text, text, in the mimetic trajectories of movements created by Aigars Apiņas, paraphrases the message of the play “Kalendars mani sauc” (dir. Mārtiņš Eihe) staged in the spring of the Valmiera Drama Theater from “we are all Oscar’ to ‘we’re all waiting in some line’. Similar to “Hammock Commune”, “Rinda” also includes a smiling effect, which is characteristic of many performances of previous summers and is so suitable for summer theater.