BAU!

In BAU! Raimonda Gudavičiūtė explores the theme of fears within us and how we face them when we don’t feel safe and would prefer to hide. The starting point is Franz Kafka’s fragmentary short story The Burrow, in which a badger-like animal becomes increasingly lost in its underground burrow out of fear of an unknown outside world. The space, which Gudavičiūtė creates together with her set and costume designer Medilė Šiaulytytė, the dancers, her team and the young audience, alternates between hide-and-seek, fortress and dance floor. The familiar surroundings of the school become a playful space for movement and encounters.

Raimonda Gudavičiūtė began dance lessons at the age of 9. She studied contemporary dance and acting at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater in her home town of Vilnius and at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Lyon. She also completed a master’s degree in contemporary dance at the Theater Academy in Helsinki. She has lived in Frankfurt am Main since 2011 and creates her own works as a freelance dancer, choreographer and dance teacher. In 2020, she created her dance piece M(other) with her son Elias based on the short film M(e)& M(other). M(other) premiered at the Tanzfestival Rhein-Main in Frankfurt in 2021 and was performed by the Hessisches Staatsballett as a guest performance at the Staatstheater Darmstadt. It has been performed at various dance festivals in Finland, Slovakia, the Netherlands and Lithuania.

Medilė Šiaulytytė is a Lithuanian costume and set designer based in Rome. She studied costume design under Piero Tosi at the National Film School in Rome and scenography at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vilnius. Since then, she has designed costumes and sets for several major Lithuanian theaters, including the National Opera and Ballet Theater in Vilnius, and has designed the costumes for three feature films produced in Italy. Šiaulytytė won the Golden Stage Cross award for the best stage/costume design of the year in Lithuania in 2010 and 2015. In 2021 she started her collaboration with Raimonda Gudavičiūtė for the dance piece M(other).

Valerio C. Faggioni, born in Rome, studied film music in London. He went on to compose for television, advertising, mixed media and interactive music. He was also the European games manager for Dolby Laboratories in San Francisco. He is one of the founders of Unbearable Recordings and has performed as a musician in New York, Paris, Tokyo and at the Venice Biennale. He also teaches at the Royal Academy of Music in Denmark and the Centro Sperimentale di Cinema in Rome, among others, and is developing a new music label together with Roberta D’Angelo – Eiga, which aims to cross the boundaries between media.

Procedure
After a short welcome and introduction to the piece, we guide the audience to the location where the performance takes place. The students are asked to take off their shoes and then sit down along both sides of the stage set. The dancers are already in the room. An important part of the concept is the playful, moderated discussion afterwards, during which the students are invited to ask questions and share their observations and reflections about what they have seen with the artists involved. The total duration of the event, including introduction and discussion, will be about 1 hour and 10 minutes.

Schedule:

• Meeting point: 15 minutes before the performance begins

• 10 min. introduction

• 35 min. performance

• 15 min. discussion afterwards

• 10 min. farewell for the children, accompanied by house staff

A special feature for follow-up work after the performance is the program booklet. It is designed in postcard format and contains three questions that the children can answer about what they saw and experienced. These cards can then be sent back to us like a postcard.

Choreography and idea Raimonda Gudavičiūtė
Idea stage & costume Medile Šiaulytytė
MusicValerio C. Faggioni
Dramaturgy Lucas Herrmann
Dancepedagogy Nira Priore Nouak

Duration: ca 35 Min.

Photos: De-Da Productions