Events

The “Lietuva” ensemble presents the premiere of the musical performance “Homo asfaltus,” which this time will surprise both longtime fans and those who are just discovering the ensemble’s creative experiments with its highly unusual format.

Over the past thirty years of independence, Lithuanian literature has turned its attention to urban culture, urban dwellers, and, in a sense, has romanticized the individual who is always in a hurry, pursuing a career, and leading an active social life.

During the Soviet era, the image of the countryside was deliberately obscured by real and imagined things. After regaining independence, many dreamed that skyscrapers would spring up in Vilnius, transforming it into a bustling city like Paris, Berlin, London, or New York.

However, the fast pace of life and the abundance of information are not natural for the human body, which has spent most of its existence surrounded by nature. Humans do not change as quickly as they can change the environment around them. Now we are seeing an increasing trend among young people to return to nature and to move back to the countryside, which has been severely depopulated due to high emigration. Young people are turning to nature, and as a result, the works of Lithuanians who lived in exile—which convey a longing for the countryside and nature—are beginning to resonate once again.

The urban-rural dichotomy is a common theme in Lithuanian literature, but now the works of the “landless” seem to be coming to life anew. In Lithuanian literature, we refer to “landless” authors as those who wrote in exile and who experienced a profound longing for their homeland—or, more precisely, for Lithuania. Many of them emigrated to live in large cities, leaving behind the peaceful rural life in Lithuania. And first and foremost, this work was inspired by the creative legacy of Jonas Mekas and his play *The Very Beginning*.

In many of his works, J. Mekas explored themes of exile, identity, nostalgia, and adaptation to a foreign culture. To be inspired by J. Mekas means we are inspired by his personal experiences—exile, a sense of loneliness, longing for his homeland, the search for identity, the fragility of time, and other existential questions faced by a person caught at the crossroads of historical upheavals, in a war-torn world that resonates with today’s world. Inspired by J. Mekas’s play “The Very Beginning” and his ability to focus the human gaze on the living, pulsating nature of the here and now—which exists without any human effort, without the exertion of the human mind.
We also draw upon texts by other Lithuanian émigrés that have already become classics—Antanas Škėma’s “The White Shroud” and Alfonsas Nyka-Niliūnas’s “Eldorado”— — we reflect on the modern human, whom we have named “Homo asfaltus.”

In literary circles, these writers are classified as “rootless” because they all created their works in exile, most often in major cities around the world. And we transfer this feeling—this longing for the homeland—to today’s Homo asfaltus, who, in a globalized world, feels as if in exile and is searching for his true self.

Homo asfaltus rides Bolt back and forth, just as Garšva (from A. Škėma’s *Drobulė*) goes up and down in an elevator, having completely lost his sense of meaning.

Homo asfaltus lives with a sense of the world’s impending end, due to the ongoing war, and yet is still most concerned about his wilted begonias.

Homo asfaltus lives having lost the sense of home and of his own land, wondering if there is still earth beneath the asphalt?
Homo Asfaltus has lost the ability to feel, and so no longer senses even the new life growing in her womb; and it is precisely pregnancy—a new beginning—that is capable of awakening Homo Asfaltus to start anew, thus transforming the end of the world into the beginning of the world, where language and words disappear and only archaic music remains. This will be a musical journey, starting today and traveling back into the past, toward our national heritage—songs and instruments—to a place where words no longer exist and only sound remains.

“The sense of the end of the world in which we live is, today, an opportunity for the beginning of a new world. We have overvalued reason, which is why we are endlessly caught in the cycle of hell, but there are still constructs that bring us back to nature—one of them is pregnancy,” says director Giedrė Kriaučionytė-Vosylienė.

The libretto written by Laura Švedaitė tells the story of a woman who now lives in the city and is standing on a bridge, determined to jump, but learns from those around her that she is pregnant—something she herself has not noticed. First and foremost, this revelation turns her gaze toward the world—“What kind of world will I bring my future child into?” And her world is the city where she lives—an allegory of hell—where it is unbearably hot, and as you wander through it, you find yourself caught in a cycle of anger, greed, and lies.

The city is overrun by homeless people—people who have no home, but are simply looking for a place to sleep for one more night. A pregnant woman—a city dweller—begins to feel a desire to return to nature, because as long as she is in the city, she feels as if she has been exiled from her normal state of being—life in nature. In the city, she meets an old man standing barefoot. He asks, “Am I the last generation to walk barefoot?” She starts running and finds herself in the forest. There, she takes off her shoes and begins to feel nature speaking to her. Finally, labor begins and the rain pours down. A new person signifies a new possible beginning and a new phase.

The music created by Dominykas Digimas reflects a journey from the rhythms heard today, which attempt to stir the emotions of Homo asfaltus. Contemporary music, lacking subtlety, must sound loud and intense to rouse Homo asfaltus from its stagnation, as if awakening it from a dream of numbness. It also reflects a journey through national heritage—the sounds of sutartines, the kanklės, and the birbynė—music that Homo asfaltus knows but has forgotten, music that evokes memories. A journey into the wordless realm of music, an archaic world where only sound remains and words fade away, where only feelings and the hope of a new beginning prevail.

 CREATIVE TEAM:
Composer – Dominykas Digimas
Conductor – Egidijus Kaveckas
Director – Giedrė Kriaučionytė-Vosylienė
Screenplay and Libretto Author – Lina Laura Švedaitė
Costume Designer – Izabelė Narečionytė
Lighting Designer – Pijus Vasiliauskas
Principal Chorus Master – Algimantas Kriūnas
Artistic Director – Giedrius Svilainis

 ROLES AND CAST:
The choir and orchestra
of the State Ensemble “Lietuva” Pregnant Woman: Smiltė Murencevaitė-Janušienė / Ieva Granickienė
Mother: Ingrida Raugaitė / Aušra Kiuraitė-Svilainienė
Old Man: Saulius Vasiliauskis / Zenius Sakalauskas
Twin Sister: Asta Balnionytė-Grajevskė / Estera Paukštytė-Penkaitienė
Runner: Domas Saulevičius / Modestas Karanda
Man: Gintarė Kulikauskytė / Justina Kaminskaitė
Woman: Viktorija Šedbaraitė / Rima Žukauskienė
Museum employee: Daiva Čepulionienė / Irena Kerulienė
Yoga instructor: Jevgenijus Kovalčukas / Dainius Garuckas
Father: Martynas Žukauskas / Albertas Toločka
Neighbor: Kęstutis Papartis
Voice of Knowledge: Donatas Kaikaris
Husband: Ignas Ščesnulevičius
Townspeople’s Choir: Elzita Girčytė-Snapkauskienė, Rima Žukauskienė, Ingrida Siemaškienė, Tadas Imbrasas
Townspeople’s Orchestra: Arvydas Jankus, Simas Miklovis, Viktoras Rimša, Tomas Matevičius, Lauryna Labutytė, Saulė Zadesenec, Gintarė Želvytė, Sonata Zavadskytė, Evelina Sulikaitė, Vincentas Daukšys