THE MEET(ing) is a ritual, inviting the audience to participate instead observing. It’s an invitation to tickle someone to death, to rock a doll like a woman, sink ships by barely glancing at them, heal others with pure spring water, let one’s hair down and let the devil loose. It’s about spotting three crucial flaws of horrid women: disbelief, self-love and an insane attraction to bodily pleasures.

It’s about finding a witch.

Seeing and seeing it through to the very end.

A SECT (latin “secta” – “school, teaching”, “sequor” – “follow”) – is a controversial term referring to a certain type of religious organizations and groups.

The dramaturgy of the show is based on three sources: first is the analysis of sexual identities and stereotypes as manifestations of the feminine and the masculine in the contemporary society. The second source is the archive of historical witch trials in Lithuania, which so far have received little public attention and yet serve as a material echoing and amplifying today’s reality. Thirdly, the performance delves into the modus operandi of a sect, revealing manipulations of power, faith and brainwashing.

People who have found themselves in extreme situations and liminal experiences give us, the creators of the show, a chance to reflect on the human history and the possibility of it repeating as well as on our innate wish to be part of a community and what consequences it may bear. In the performance, we speak of sex/ gender and balancing on the thin line between the importance and ambivalence of one’s sex. The show may be critical of the current social trends but perhaps it is based only on our artistic wish to satisfy our curiosity in order to reveal what we consider the most burning issues of social relations today. Viewers of the show can become participants of THE SECT we have started, and thus they can take part in all the pleasurable activities The MEET(ing) presents in front of them.

INFORMATION

Concept, director: Lauryna Liepaitė

Dramaturgy: Kristina Savickienė

Choreography, dance: Airida Gudaitė, Laurynas Žakevičius

Performance: Gediminas Rimeika

Compositors, live music performance, electronica: Agnė Matulevičiūtė, Laura Budreckytė (vocals), Vytis Nivinskas (double-bass), Džiugas Gvozdinskas (guitar)

Light design: Eugenijus Sabaliauskas

Light supervision: Povilas Laurinaitis, Julius Kuršys

Duration: 70′

Premiere: 2018

N16

Reviews

At the end of the marathon, I asked myself another question – has Lithuanian theater finally learned the language of feminism? In 2018, #metoo had an echo in the cultural circles of our society, and how specifically did the movement benefit the theater, how did it affect it? I think we can already capture the mechanisms for legitimizing feminism that are reflected in contemporary theater discourse. Prominent examples are Alytus City Theater project “Seen”, Klaipėda Drama Theater “Mama Drąsa” and Vilnius City Dance Theater “Low Air” ritual “Su(si)tikimas”.

Ingrida Ragelskienė, 7md.lt, 2019

Out of contemporary dance performances Low Air’s THE MEET(ing) is still holding me – watching it (or participating in it) showed that you are in a space where the complexes of the creators of the performance are exhibited, manipulating open forms of contemporary theater and dance and spectators who as if the children of the city of Hameln follow a rat in a circle with sectarians wearing variegated robes, and then obediently stack a scum of punishment around a witch chosen from their own platoon.

Helmutas Šabasevičius, 7md.lt, Nr. 42 (1279), 2018

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Rimeika seems to feel best here, improvising most of the time, and doing it great. His courage, gentle aggression, both annoying and tormenting and attracting. His sexuality goes through most stages, it acts as the water of the performance, connecting the individual fish.

Dovilė Zavedskaitė-Statkevičienė, 7md.lt, Nr. 41 (1278), 2018

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No one resisted the inhumane action of the ritual, nor dismantled it. Attended or watched, maybe even had fun at a party.

Ingrida Gerbutavičiūtė ir Rūta Oginskaitė, Menų faktūra, 2018

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