OKT

2nd Lithuanian Performing Arts Platform Vilnius International Theatre Festival "Sirenos"

Celebration

Director – Kamilė Gudmonaitė Dramaturg – Laura Švedaitė Set and costume design – Barbora Šulniūtė Choreographer – Mantas Stabačinskas Composer – Simonas Šipavičius Lighting designer – Vilius Vilutis

Cast: Loreta Taluntytė, Kristina Šaparauskaitė, Oleg Dlugovskij, Božena Burokienė, Justina Platakytė, Juozas Čepulis, Mantas Stabačinskas.

The choice to stage this play was driven by a clear sense that disability is still an invisible category in society, which needs to be understood by bringing both the theatre and the audience closer to disability itself, by looking at its essence, and by observing what people with disabilities themselves think about disability as a phenomenon. The creators of the play seek to strip away the concept of normality and raise the question of the possible diversity of human existence, the variety of sensations and experiences. Official statistics state that people with disabilities make up about 9% of the total population in Lithuania, meaning almost one in ten residents, yet most people without disabilities boldly claim during surveys that there are no disabled people in Lithuania at all. In Lithuania, people with disabilities are still segregated, without considering that their subculture could contribute to the cultivation of an alternative, synesthetic, or otherwise unique existential worldview. For example, people with hearing or visual impairments have developed excellent tactile abilities, but their worldview is most often isolated by seeing only negative characteristics; therefore, they are often forced to develop the same knowledge of the world as those without disabilities, even though they could have a different, otherwise richer one. Ultimately, the question arises: how much disability is there in "able-bodied" people, why is it so difficult to accept aspects of one's own body or personality, and what can we learn from the realization that we are all sorts of things: diverse, strange, tragic, sometimes funny? The title of the play, "Celebration," contains a reference that the audience is invited to a celebration of existence and diversity, a party for being who you are.

The play features people with various disabilities – physical, mental, intellectual, sensory – who were brought together with the help of the disability theatre "Naujasis teatras," and the dramaturgy is created documentarily from their shares, stories, and discussions held with the creative team.