PERFORMANCE_Seeing through voice

Eye Gymnastics (Lithuania)

Ant Rūtos salės

An acoustic performance and a vocal journey

“Eye Gymnastics” is the stage name of Victoria Damerell and Gailė Griciūtė theatre company. Since 2018, the Vilnius-based artists have been collaborating on performances of experimental music, vocal instructions and incantations. Their explorations fuse sensual timbres with mental journeys, hypnosis and echoes of pop music. Eye Gymnastics have appeared in the exhibitions “Bio – Phantomas’ic Sessions” at Žeimiai Mainor and “2090” at Lentvaris artists’ space “Lokomotif”, as well as in the festivals “Jauna Muzika”, “Ars Electronica” and “Videogramos” in Vilnius, Rupert’s residency online event “In Dissolve” and birthday event “Fortune Wheel” in Vilnius, Kaunas Artists’ House’s event “Art Birthday”, Haus Der Kunst’s performance series “Atmosferics” in Munich.

“Eye Gymnastics invites the festival audience to take part in a special sonic experience. During four workshops, the duo will develop a core of performers that will form the basis of the final performance. In it, Eye Gymnastics and Co. will offer any visitor the opportunity to engage in an exploration of commonality and resonance through the use of their own voices.

The performance is an opportunity for workshop participants and the audience to create a reciprocal sonic experience with the artists. By offering a particular use of vocal, deep listening and spatial resonance, the artists invite us to turn our attention away from individual artistic decisions and towards an experience of the whole, where everyone’s contribution forms an interdependent organism.

Amazement and a form of vulnerability go hand in hand. Openness to the world and to what surrounds us, i.e. vulnerability, gives us the capacity to wonder. In order to be able to wonder, we need to cultivate attention. But to cultivate this attention means abandoning habits that close us off from the world. Often we do not want to open up or we do not want others to open up to us. We feel too much responsibility, and too much risk: if someone or something opens up to us, it is an obligation, because what has been opened up to us is a gift to be received and cared for. When we are preoccupied with our own worlds, when we are insecure and when we live in a culture where individualism is the supposed source of our integrity, such commitment, care and attention seem too risky. But we are impoverished as a result.  “Eye Gymnastics is a lesson in how to move together in the face of mutual vulnerability.

Running time: 40 min no interval
Audience age recommendation: +12 years.