“Sun & Sea remains one of the greatest achievements in performance of the last 10 years (...)" The New York Times
Down on the sandy beach, sunseekers eager to relax have spread out their beach towels. Plastic spades, beach balls, and Tupperware: these flashes of colour shimmer upwards from the uniformly beige still life towards the audience’s bird’s-eye view. As they lounge about, the singers and performers describe their holidays in a sequence of 24 songs: ‘My boy is eight and a half / and he’s already been swimming in / the Black / the Yellow / the White / the Red / the Mediterranean / Aegean seas / and we’ll visit the remaining ones this year’ go the lyrics of Wealthy Mommy’s Song. The indoor beach opera Sun & Sea, (by Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, Vaiva Grainytė and Lina Lapelytė) which picked up a Golden Lion at the 2019 Venice Biennale, provides food for thought on such topics as capitalism and climate change, tourism and privilege. While the affluent holidaymakers indulge in their hedonism down below, the audience gets to view the whole scene from above.
Concept, development Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, Vaiva Grainytė, Lina Lapelytė Direction, Set design Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė Text Vaiva Grainytė With Aliona Alymova, Svetlana Bagdonaitė, Raminta Barzdžiukienė, Marco Cisco, Sebastian de la Cour, Gabija Damanskytė, Justina Damanskytė, Nabila Dandara, Daniel Monteagudo Garcia, Claudia Graziadei, Vincentas Korba, Yates Norton, Eglė Paškevičienė, Lucas Lopes Pereira, Nora Petrocenko, Kalliopi Petrou, Jonas Statkevičius, Lukas Vaičiūnas and Alexandru Cosarca, Samira Fux, Kai Götting, Vasilisa Grebenshchikova, Ante Gröning, Carl Gröning, Franziska Gröning, Eva Kaltenbrunner, Anna Lyssenko, Elisaveta Lyssenko, Julia Pitsch, Thierry Robert, Claus Peter Steppi, Ivan Strelkin, Defne Uluer, Lorenz Waller, Vincent Waller Composition, Musical direction Lina Lapelytė Curator Lucia Pietroiusti Tour producer Aušra Simanavičiūtė Production management, Stage management Erika Urbelevič Technical direction Lique Van Gerven, Dovydas Korba, Istvan Tomas Sound engineering Romuald Chaloin Galiauskas Translation Rimas Uzgiris (English)
Production Sun & Sea Original production Neon Realism
Premiere May 2019, Biennale di Venezia
