GAJA MARA

Gaja-Mara is an interactive musical movement performance that tells the story of the time of light (Gaja) and dark (Mara) through folkloric holiday songs, games, rituals and folklore used in the ancient Baltic tradition.

Gaja is the time of life, prosperity, light forces. Mara is the period of the death of life, when everything calms down, dies, and rests. In the play, Gaja and Mara (actresses Viola Klimčiauskaitė and Kristina Savickytė) become mothers in conversations with other mothers about the fact that when a child is born, it is as if you die, giving up yourself, your needs, but as the child grows up, you are born again, discovering your new qualities and meaning of being. Therefore, the main creators and only performers of the performance are two mature women, mothers who have already raised their children.

The main artistic theme of the performance "Gaja-Mara" is based on the worldview of the ancient Balts, the concept of the cycle of nature, the connection with light and the idea, the ritualistic and primitive sense of time, before which the unborn, babies and those who are just starting to walk recognize the world.

The play's co-producer - the children of the play's director Ieva Jackevičiūtė and her husband, the actor Raimondas Klezys - was established by the theater "No Shoes", whose aim is to cultivate Lithuanian folklore and aesthetics in a medium that is no longer naturally transmitted today. , the need to maintain contact with one's cultural roots is also cultivated.

Another goal of the performance is to stimulate the brain activity of the participants of small events through the combination of sound, color, movement, touch and evocative emotions. After all, by means of such an integrative experience, the neural connections of the brain of newborn babies are encouraged to develop (this affects the entire psychophysical development of the baby), and expectant mothers, experiencing positive artistic emotions and participating in the performance, also nurture the child that is still in the heart.

In 2024 performance was awarded the Fortune statuette (Annual Kaunas theatre awards).

Duration: 30 min. + 15 min. in the game space. English Friendly, because the performance is not language-based.

A ticket is required for both an adult and a child (regardless of the child's age).

The production of the play was financed by the CULTURAL COUNCIL OF LITHUANIA and the KAUNAS CITY MUNICIPALITY