Sun & Sea - sold out

Sun, beach and climate change

In 2019 the Lithuanian opera performance Sun & Sea won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Biennale. Klarafestival is bringing this legendary performance which takes place on an artificial beach to Brussels. A group of holidaymakers try to relax, only to be rudely awakened by the consequences of climate change.   

 

Imagine a beach – you within it, or better: watching from above – the burning sun, sunscreen and bright bathing suits and sweaty palms and legs. Tired limbs sprawled lazily across a mosaic of towels. Imagine the occasional squeal of children, laughter, the sound of an ice cream van in the distance. The musical rhythm of waves on the surf, a soothing sound (on this particular beach, not elsewhere). The crinkling of plastic bags whirling in the air, their silent floating, jellyfish-like, below the waterline. The rumble of a volcano, or of an airplane, or a speedboat. Then a chorus of songs: everyday songs, songs of worry and of boredom, songs of almost nothing. And below them: the slow creaking of an exhausted Earth, a gasp. (Lucia Pietroiusti)

 

The three makers of Sun & Sea – Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, Vaiva Grainytė and Lina Lapelytė – choose a path between documentary and fiction, between reality and poetry. They use theatre, music and the visual arts. A 10-voice choir and more than 20 other performers trudge sweatily across the sand. A unique performance that Venice audiences queued for hours to see. We sat down with the three artists behind Sun & Sea: director Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, writer Vaiva Grainytė and composer Lina Lapelytė.

 

Sun & Sea wasn't your first collaboration. In 2010 you already created Have a Good Day! together, which equally was a big success. 

 

Lina Lapelytė: The opera Have a Good Day! for 10 cashiers, supermarket sounds and piano brought us together artistically. That particular work dealt with the circle of buying and selling, consumerism, capitalism... The cashier in the supermarket became a metaphorical figure reflecting each of us. While we were touring with Have a Good Day! and focusing on our own practices, we slowly started to develop Sun & Sea. We later discovered that our new opera was actually a continuation of the theme of consumerism and the collective voice, but this time taking the topic further: to the consumption of the planet and the joy of it.

 

And to address the topic of climate change, you chose to set your next opera amidst an artificial, crowded beach. Why?

 

Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė: The initial intuition we felt when imagining a singing beach was the relation between our bodies, which are fragile and mortal, and the bigger, cosmic body of Earth, equally fragile. It is also very light and a bit funny, too. If you look at it from a distance, beach rituals make the human species look more peculiar than any other sea or sky creature. The fact that the beachgoers are also singing makes the experience even more surreal. At the same time, the irony of it all helps to transmit difficult topics in such a way. It makes them easier to grasp.

 

Was it hard to find a common language?

 

Vaiva Grainytė: It’s like living in a dormitory and having a shared kitchen. All the ingredients of the piece are being cooked together during collective sessions. Although, when it comes to specific tasks and competences, we have our private rooms, our own territory. But because of the aforementioned dorm mode, this privacy is constantly interrupted and ‘inspected’. That is to say, it is an overwhelming process! 

Lina Lapelytė: We do come from very different backgrounds. Vaiva is a writer and a poet, who studied theatre criticism, Rugile is a documentary filmmaker, who studied theatre directing, and I am a musician and performer with a degree in sculpture. When we work, we first develop the conceptual framework together. Later on, each of us become instrumental in fulfilling the specific tasks. Vaiva writes the text, which I put into a musical score, and Rugile takes care of everything visual. In Sun & Sea, the performers also played a very important part in how the piece was developed. We all participated in selecting the performers, absorbing, listening to them.
 

Vaiva Grainytė, your work has been described as "reflections on everyday life", "equipped with the gaze of an ironic anthropologist". Are these elements also present in the libretto you wrote for Sun & Sea? 

 

Vaiva Grainytė: Yes, indeed. The topic of climate change itself is utterly threatening, and fuelled with despair, let alone grief. It was quite a challenge to find the proper language for the piece: there was the danger of repeating the predominant doomsday rhetoric or suggesting a solution and so to end up being moralistic. Whereas humor and irony allow for melancholy to enter through the back door.

The libretto of the piece is set as a mosaic of stories, inner monologues, and thoughts, sung in solos and as a chorus. This soup of stories might sound like a mundane and carefree buzz: some lady complaining about messy dogs, a vegan boy sharing his dream he just had about visiting a seafood restaurant,... But through this poppy and synthetic ocean of songs, one can feel the threat throbbing: jellyfish dancing with plastic bags, water as green as the forest, a vacationer wearing a swimsuit labelled “made in China”,.... All these micro-narratives somehow refer to consumeristic pleasures and inertness. They’re a joint outcome of research, own experiences and the personal encounters we had with the singers.
 

Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, what has been your approach as a theatre director? Did your background in cinema affect how you staged this live performance? 

 

Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė: Before starting to work on Sun & Sea, I was making a film called Acid Forest, where humans arrive at a tourist attraction and are observed by the birds from above. The interspecies hierarchy was reversed, so that humans were perceived as tiny creatures, ants of some sort. This experience helped to nurture the idea of looking onto a beach from above as a superficial and anthropologically rich situation, with hot ecological topics inside. 

 

Lina Lapelytė, your compositions often approach singing as a collective event, shared by both professionals and amateurs. What about your composition for Sun & Sea?

 

Lina Lapelytė: For me music is sculptural. I rarely think about sound alone or for the sake of its own beauty. Working with different people and different musical abilities teaches us about tolerance, patience and slowness, and I like being reminded about this. For my latest, ongoing work Study of Slope I invited tone deaf people to go on a musical journey together. In Sun & Sea, the musical material came out of the close observation of the people we decided to work with. Most of the arias were composed with a specific singer in mind. The collective aspect of music making and resonance that can be achieved by a group of people is something that interests me a lot. The single voice that turns into a collective voice has a lot of power, a power that goes beyond the music itself.

Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė (1983, based in Vilnius) works as a filmmaker, theatre director and visual artist. In her creative practice, Barzdžiukaitė explores the gap between objective and imagined realities, while challenging an anthropocentric way of thinking in a playful way. Her recent full-length documentary film-essay Acid Forest was awarded at the Locarno International Film Festival among others. Sun & Sea is her latest collaboration in the medium of performance.

 

Vaiva Grainytė‘s (1984, based in Lithuania and Canada) text-based practice shifts between genres, interdisciplinary theatre works and publications. As a writer, playwright, and poet she takes action as an observant anthropologist: challenged by Grainyte's poetic interpretation, mundane social issues take on a paradoxical and defamiliarised nature. Her book of essays Beijing Diaries (2012) and the poetry collection Gorilla’s Archives (2019) were nominated for the Book of the Year awards.

 

Lina Lapelytė's (1984, works in Vilnius and London) performance-based practice is rooted in music and flirts with pop culture, gender stereotypes and nostalgia. Her works engage trained and untrained performers, often in an act of singing through a wide range of genres such as mainstream music and opera. The singing takes the form of a collective and affective event that questions vulnerability and silencing.
 

In their collaborative practice, the artists pay special attention to the relationship between documentary and fiction, reality and poetry as well as the overlap of theatre, music and the visual arts. Their opera-performance Sun & Sea is their second collaboration. The work was most recently presented as Sun & Sea (Marina), representing Lithuania at the 58th Contemporary Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, where it was awarded the Golden Lion for Best National Participation. Their previous work, the contemporary opera Have a Good Day! for 10 cashiers, supermarket sounds and piano, premiered in 2013 and is touring worldwide.

I.SUNSCREEN BOSSA NOVA

Hand it here, I need to rub my legs...

‘Cause later they’ll peel and crack,

And chap.’

Hand it I will rub you…

Otherwise, you’ll be red as a lobster…

Hand it I will rub you…

 

I.YOUNG MAN FROM THE VOLCANO COUPLE

I flew to a Portuguese corrida –

A short trip, just for fun.

But then the pilot had to land the plane in London:

So I called up my friends

And stayed over for a couple of days.

And from that day on,

Linda and I never been apart.

Not a single climatologist predicted a scenario like this.

Maybe someone had a feeling – perhaps the bull?…

… perhaps the bull?…

 

I.VACATIONERS’ CHORUS

TODAY THEY HAVE RAISED

THE RED AND YELLOW FLAG UP HIGH:

THE WHIRLPOOLS OF THE SEA,

DROP-OFFS,

RIP-TIDES,

UNDERTOWS.

YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED

TO WADE IN

DEEPER THAN YOUR KNEES!

 

I.SIREN’S ARIA

The man I once married,

My ex, he drowned in South-East Asia.

He was the best of swimmers,

On vacation with his girlfriend.

To this very day, no one can understand how it could happen to him:

Some say he was swimming out too far beyond the shore,

And the deep waters took him in.

Others, knowing him better,

Claim he had suffered a cramp due to a magnesium deficiency…

 

II.VACATIONERS’ CHORUS

YOU ARE STRONGLY ADVISED TO STAY ON SHORE,

YOU SHOULD NOT LEAVE YOUR CHILDREN UNOBSERVED!

JUST BUILD CASTLES IN THE SAND,

WALK THE BEACH COLLECTING STONES, SHELLS, AMBER, AND BABY TEETH!…

 

I.WEALTHY MOMMY’S SONG

My boy is eight and a half

And he has been swimming in

The Black,

The Yellow,

The White,

The Red,

The Mediterranean,

Aegean seas...

He has already visited two of the world’s great oceans,

And we’ll visit the remaining ones this year!

 

Two weeks ago, my husband took me diving in Australia.

Two photographers swam after us – included in the price!

Our little one stayed on shore together with our nanny…

 

We explored the coral forests,

We climbed through their branches,

It certainly tired us, such density!… 

 

What a relief that the Great Barrier Reef has a restaurant and hotel!

We sat down to sip our piña coladas – included in the price!

They taste better under the water,

Simply a paradise!

 

I.CHANSON OF ADMIRATION

What a sky, just look, so clear!

Not a single cloud…

What is there? – seagulls or terns?

I can never tell…

O la vida

La vida…

 

I.SONG OF EXHAUSTION. WORKAHOLIC’S SONG

I really don’t feel that I can let myself slow down,

Because my colleagues will look down on me.

They’ll say I have no strength of will.

And I’ll become a loser in my own eyes

 

Exhaustion, exhaustion, exhaustion, exhaustion…

Exhaustion, exhaustion, exhaustion, exhaustion…

 

Exhaustion –

I like to say it as a joke –

It’s like a mammoth,

A nonexistent creature, gone extinct.

Encyclopedias have it,

But in life – a thing you’ll never meet.

 

II.CHANSON OF TOO MUCH SUN

My eyelids are heavy,

My head is dizzy,

Light and empty body,

There’s no water left in the bottle.

 

MY EYELIDS ARE HEAVY,

MY HEAD IS DIZZY,

LIGHT AND EMPTY BODY,

THERE’S NO WATER LEFT IN THE BOTTLE.

 

DREAM

I’m a guest at the house of the author of this book.

It’s pleasant and comfy atmosphere, I feel like laughing.

But all of a sudden, the host starts massaging his temples,

Closing his eyes,

He says: I don’t feel too well, it’s back again, it’s time!

Time for what? – I ask him, feeling concerned

 

And then he explains it all to me:

I HAVE IN MY HEAD A TUMOR THE SIZE OF AN EGG,

IT GIVES ME PAINS THAT I CAN HARDLY BEAR!

I NEED TO EAT A HANDFUL OF SHRIMP,

AND ONLY THEN DOES THE SUFFERING END.

I HAVE TO GET SOME SHRIMP, QUICKLY,

TAKE ME TO A RESTAURANT,

UP THERE, ON THE HILL, INSIDE THE CASTLE…

 

He starts to panic,

I say: OK.

Only Wait, I say, I don’t know how to drive.

And wait, I say again, now getting angry:

How can you eat shrimp when you are the ambassador of eating raw?

You are the spokesman for uncooked, vegetarian food,

How can you be such an impudent liar?

You fraud!

 

I start to hit him with my fists, and wake up soaking in sweat – 

‘ve never had a stranger dream!

 

I.PHILOSOPHER’S COMMENTARY

Is it not a comical even grotesque situation:

Ancient Persia, China, India –

Some of the oldest civilizations in the world.

A thousand years went by and we are

Lying here on the beach,

Snacking on super sweet dates imported from Iran,

Playing a game of chess invented by Indian Brahmins,

Wearing swimming suits made in the factories of China –

Is this not a parody of the Silk Road?

 

I.SONG OF COMPLAINT

What’s wrong with people – they come here with their dogs,

Who leave shit on the beach, fleas on the sand!

I come home from the shore, covered with bites, and my skin itching like mad.

 

What’s wrong with people – they drink beer in the heat of the day!

They spill it and it seeps into the sand,

Then it smells like a slum-hole!

 

Which then plays a nice duet with bites of sandwich left behind –

It feels like lying all day by a homeless man!

 

Recently, I stretched my blanket out – right on the old remains of smoked fish –

It was all rotten skin and bones!

I could smell the stench as I lay down.

Turning on my stomach, a foreign body –

A champagne cork – poking my ribs!

What’s wrong with people – is it so hard to walk to a trash bin, or what?

 

What’s wrong with people – they come here with their dogs,

Who leave shit on the beach, fleas on the sand!…

 

SOLO:

The colours of the sea and sky have changed.

CHORUS:

THIS SEASON THE SEA IS AS GREEN AS THE FOREST

 

II.SIREN’S ARIA

The great-great-great-grandmother of fish

Passed on to her descendants the secrets of gill control:

Every animal kingdom has its special privileges,

Everything is wisely planned out, but humankind –

Well, you don’t have to look far – my aforementioned husband, my ex – 

Was so inclined to rash behavior.

This mammal with limited lung power,

Still tries so hard to go into the sea,

To dive down deep:

He wants to conquer and control what is not his to own…

 

Acidy waves,

Ivory foam,

Rocking the boats full of canned goods, tourists, fruits, and weapons. 

 

Airplanes in the sky,

Ships sailing the sea.

 

ACIDY WAVES,

IVORY FOAM –

AIRPLANES IN THE SKY,

SHIPS SAILING THE SEA…

 

THE COUPLE’S DISTANCE SONG

–So what time in the morning is your flight?

–It’s quarter past seven!

–So you need to be there before five…

–I am already getting sad…

–In the morning, I’ll make an omelet…

Then we’ll see each other in a week…

–But that week seems so long…

–We should remember to get some gas!

–Can you rub my shoulders? They’re burning

 

II.WEALTHY MOMMY’S SONG

…we said we’d celebrate our son’s birthday there in a year and a half! 

What an amazing sight!

Those coral horns, that bleached, pallid whiteness…

You have to see it, words cannot describe it!

 

…our baby boy will be ten in a year and a half!

I want him to see the Great Barrier Reef with his own eyes!

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...

He has already visited two of the world’s great oceans,

And we’ll visit the remaining ones this year!

 

II.PHILOSOPHER’S COMMENTARY

The banana comes into being, ripens somewhere in South America,

And then it ends up on the other side of the planet,

So far away from home.

It only existed to satisfy our hunger in one bite,

To give us a feeling of bliss.

 

Serotonin from Ecuador – in our northern flatland,

For any time of day or time of year…

 

II.SONG OF COMPLAINT

…ever since my childhood, smoked fish carries unpleasant associations: 

My grandmother used to make me eat smoked fish with mayonnaise for breakfast –

Everyday, the same.

A strange bird, now passed away.

 

Our farmhouse is full of grandmother’s things, we didn’t want them anymore at home:

We’re going out there next weekend,

I’ll carry out all the coats, and furs, and books into the sun.

Only that sun…

One doesn’t know what to expect…

Even snow in summer wouldn’t surprise me!

Everything is out of joint:

The beginning of May brought frost and snow

And winter gives us buds and mushrooms…

 

III.CHANSON OF ADMIRATION

Rose-colored dresses flutter:

Jellyfish dance along in pairs –

With emerald-colored bags,

Bottles and red bottle-caps.

 

O the sea never had so much color!

 

II.SONG OF EXHAUSTION. WORKOHOLIC’S SONG

I finally learned to stay calm,

Not to take my state of mind home.

And at work there are unwritten rules,

we could call them etiquette:

Don’t complain when things get difficult,

When you are lacking sleep,

When you are under the weather.

Even if you run out of gas – just keep smiling...

 

But suppressed emotions, I noticed, don’t disappear so easily,

They get knotted up in your psyche:

Suppressed negativity finds a way out unexpectedly,

Like lava.

LIKE LAVA, LIKE LAVA, LIKE LAVA, LIKE LAVA…

I feels so bad when I can’t control myself,

And I lose my cool in public.

Then I feel sorry for myself, guilty,

I feel ashamed…

LIKE LAVA, LIKE LAVA, LIKE LAVA, LIKE LAVA...

EXHAUSTION, EXHAUSTION, EXHAUSTION, EXHAUSTION,

IT’S LIKE A MAMMOTH –

A NON-EXISTENT CREATURE GONE EXTINCT:

ENCYCLOPEDIAS, THE ANNALS OF HISTORY– HAVE IT,

BUT IN LIFE – A THING YOU’LL NEVER MEET

YOU’LL NEVER MEET

YOU’LL NEVER MEET...

 

VACATION IS WHAT KILLED THE MAMMOTH –

OFFICIALLY, THE CREATURE DOES NOT EXIST, BUT ACTUALLY,

IT’S A SPECIES THAT BREEDS AT THE HIGHEST RATE.

 

AFTER VACATION,

YOUR HAIR SHINES,

YOUR EYES GLITTER,

EVERYTHING IS FINE.

 

After vacation,

Your hair shines,

Your eyes glitter,

Everything is fine.

 

VOLCANO STORY

PEOPLE HAVE BEEN PLANNING

ALL YEAR LONG THEIR TEN DAYS OFF THEIR VACATION,

WHICH THEY ONLY TAKE ONCE EVERY YEAR.

NOW SITTING ALL SWEATY IN THE AIRPORT WAITING ROOM –

GOLDEN HOT SAND EXISTS ONLY IN THE BROCHURE.

 

THE VOLCANO ERUPTED UNEXPECTEDLY,

CONTRARY TO ALL THE DIAGRAMS AND TIME TABLES –

NOT A SINGLE CLIMATOLOGIST PREDICTED A SCENARIO LIKE THIS.

 

BEFORE IT REACHED THE AIRPORT,

THE AIRPLANE WAS CAUGHT UP IN THE BLACK CLOUD.

WHEN ASHES ARE DRAWN INTO THE HOT ENGINE,

THEY BECOME GLASS:

ASHES, AEROPLANES,

ASHES, AEROPLANES,

ASHES, AEROPLANES...

 

 

II.YOUNG MAN FROM THE VOLCANO COUPLE

 

I stayed over for a couple of days,

Until the panic and the ashes diminished.

Until airport paralysis came to an end.

My friend here introduced me to his sister:

– We are together!...

– We are together!...

 

3D SISTERS’ SONG

– I cried so much when I learned that corals will be gone. 

And together with the Great Barrier Reef the fish would go extinct –

From sharks to the smallest fry.

– I cried so much when I learned bees are massively falling from the sky, 

And with them all the world’s plant life will die.

– I cried so much when I understood that I am mortal,

That my body will one day get old and wither.

And I won’t see, or feel, or smell ever again…

 

– My mother left a 3D printer turned on.

And the machine began to print me out.

 

When my body dies, I will remain,

In an empty planet without birds, animals and corals.

Yet with the press of a single button,

I will remake this world again:

– 3D corals never fade away!

– 3D animals never lose their horns!

– 3D food doesn’t have a price!

– 3D me lives forever!

 

I will print you out, mother,

When I need you,

My sister too, I will print you out,

When I miss you dearly.

All of us together will print out some meat,

And shrimp as well,

When we want something savoury to eat.

And we will print out the bees,

So that at least some sweetness is left.

 

3D CORALS NEVER FADE AWAY!

3D ANIMALS NEVER LOSE THEIR HORNS!

3D FOOD DOESN’T HAVE A PRICE!

3D ME LIVES FOREVER!

 

II.SUNSCREEN BOSSA NOVA

Will you cover my back with it, please?…

I bought us some new sunscreen…

What does it say?…

…let’s read it…

It should be good enough…

Hand me my glasses…

Look in the other bag there…

 

Protection for hypersensitive skin... Schutz für überempfindliche Haut… 

Защита сверхчувствительной кожи…

Protezione per la pelle ipersensibile…

 

III.VACATIONERS’ CHORUS

THIS YEAR THE SEA IS AS GREEN AS A FOREST:

EUTROPHICATION!

BOTANICAL GARDENS ARE FLOURISHING IN THE SEA –

THE WATER BLOOMS.

OUR BODIES ARE COVERED WITH A SLIPPERY GREEN FLEECE,

OUR SWIMSUITS ARE FILLING UP WITH ALGAE,

EMPTY SNAIL HOMES, SWOLLEN SEAWEED, FISH REMAINS,

AND ALL KINDS OF SHELLS...