-
Director
Lina Lapelytė
-
Premiere
11 April 2025
-
Duration
55 minutes
-
Tickets
Normal ticket: 120 zł
Concessionary ticket: 80 zł
Normal group ticket (over 10 people): 70 zł
Cast
About
What do we see in the sky?
A bird, a drone,
The sun, the moon,
A happy birthday balloon.
In her newest piece “Cosmic Home” (“Kosmiczny Dom”), Lina Lapelytė—known to Polish audiences for the climate performance “Sun & Sea” (winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale) and “Have a Good Day!”opera—illuminates the coincidental, seemingly insignificant or trivial everyday actions, personal rituals and routines, efforts to decipher the signs the universe might be giving us, and intimate revelations often overlooked from afar. All of these elements are essential for the construction of this metaphorical cosmic home. house. Home that will fulfill our need for grounding and security, but only if we accept that nothing is permanent or everlasting.
The musical nature of the performance and the use of voices—not necessarily in a virtuosic way—allow us to touch upon what is most fragile and sensitive within us. There’s no grand narrative here, no classic dialogue-driven scenes, no spectacular life stories. Instead, there is room for fragments of memories, streams of thought, and attempts to find patterns in the complexity of the world. Bodies, voices, set design, and even stage lights are all in constant motion, creating an environment that serves both as a playfully reminder that, in fact, nothing in the universe is stationary, while also, paradoxically, offering a moment for stillness—despite it’s continuous shift, what’s created is a space to pause on the fleeting moments that are truly are, the essence of life.
Three songs from the production were commissioned by the Jencks Foundation, the production runs simultaneously to Lina Lapelytė’s exhibition “In the Dark, We Play,” which was commissioned by the Jencks Foundation, and is on display from April 9 to December 19, 2025, at The Cosmic House in London.
The performance is played on a rotating stage.
Flickering lights appear.
Creators
Concept, Director & Composer: Lina Lapelytė
Dramaturg & Writer: Birutė Kapustinskaitė
Light Designer: Martynas Kazimierėnas
Costume Designer: Julija Frodina (Between_lab)
Music Producer & Co-composer: Daniel Bürkner
Additional contributors: Nouria Bah, Ella Finer, Sharon Gal
Music Assistant to the Director: Evaldas Alekna
Assistant Director: Monika Tuniewicz
Translation from English to Polish: Saba Litwińska
Lyric coach for Polish: Zuzanna Wrońska
Choreographic consultations: Alka Nauman
Stage Manager: Wojciech Sobolewski
Producer: Magda Igielska
Additional support: Yana Foqué, Anka Herbut, Paweł Kulka, Joanna Klass, Justyna Lipko-Konieczna
The following songs commissioned by the Jencks Foundation at The Cosmic House, London, as part of the exhibition In The Dark, We Play by Lina Lapelytė, were used in the performance:
Four Seasons
Lyrics: Nouria Bah
Music: Lina Lapelytė
Everything is Moving
Lyrics from People at Dinner, Or Sleeping:
Ella Finer with Flora Pitrolo, 2024
Music: Sharon Gal
Men in Dark Times
Lyrics: Ella Finer’s arrangement of lines by Hannah Arendt, Marcia Farquhar, Edouard Glissant, Fred Moten, C.S. Lewis, 2024
Music: Lina Lapelytė
Technical Manager: Michał Golasa
Sound Technicians: Jakub Sapka, Jerzy Szelewicz
Surtitles: Łukasz Karzewski, Maciej Kaszyński
Lighting Technicians: Jędrzej Jęcikowski
Makeup Artists: Milena Jura, Dominika Zatońska
Wardrobe Assistants: Elżbieta Kołtonowicz, Teresa Rutkowska
Set Construction Coordinator: Kacper Stykowski
Set Construction Manager: Łukasz Winkowski
Installation Technicians: Mariusz Basiak, Paweł Iwaniuk, Piotr Gromek, Marcin Puanecki, Tomasz Trojanowski
Set Construction Manager, Metalworker: Tomasz Ciężarek
Photos
fot. Adrian Lach
About the creators
Lina Lapelytė
Lina Lapelytė (born 1984) is an artist whose performance-based practice is grounded in musical composition and sound. Her work critically engages with constructs of pop culture, gender norms, and collective memory, particularly nostalgia. Through the incorporation of both trained and untrained performers, she explores vocal expression across diverse musical traditions, including popular music and opera. These performative acts of singing are conceived as collective, affective experiences that interrogate notions of vulnerability, voice, and the mechanisms of silencing within social and cultural frameworks.
Among other places, Lapelyte’s works were shown at Festival d’Automne/Bourse de Commerce, Paris (2024); Public Art Munich (2024); Wiener Festwochen (2023); FRAC, Nantes (2022); Lafayette Anticipations, Paris (2022); SPACE, London (2022); Gherdeina Biennale (2022); Zurcher Theater Spektakel (2022); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2021); 13th Kaunas Biennial (2021); BAM, NY (2021); MOCA, Los Angeles (2021); Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels (2021); Tai Kwun, Hong Kong (2021); Glasgow International (2021); Riga Biennial ‘RIBOCA2’ (2020); Cartier Foundation, Paris (2019);
& Venice Biennial, Venice (2016 & 2019);
Birutė Kapustinskaitė
Birutė Kapustinskaitė (born 1989) is a screenwriter, director, and playwright actively working across film, theatre, and interdisciplinary projects. In 2018 and 2025, she was honoured with the National Golden Cross Award for Best Playwright. Her plays have been translated into various languages and performed internationally.
Kapustinskaitė’s films were selected for more than forty film festivals around the world and have received multiple awards, including the Best Short Film award at the Jagran Film Festival 2025 in India and the Best Short Film award at the Vilnius International Film Festival. In 2019, she won the Best Screenplay Award at the Aubagne Film Festival for a feature film.
Since 2023, she has been the Head of the Screenwriting Department at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre and continues to work in various fields as a writer and director.
Martynas Kazimierėnas
Martynas Kazimierėnas (born 1982) is a designer working with light, object making, and scenography. Based in Vilnius, his practice probes the materiality of things and the origins of their function, often drawing from the motifs and forms of the great outdoors. Using cinematic lighting principles transposed into spatial and performative contexts, shifting industrial technique to domestic and artistic contexts. His lighting for performances and events is often raw, with exposed technical elements that highlight the honesty of construction.
Kazimierėnas has collaborated with artists and institutions across contemporary art and performance, including the Venice Art Biennale, Venice Architecture Biennale, Vilnius Performance Biennale, Palais de Tokyo, CAC Vilnius, ArtVilnius, Nida Art Colony, and Niem Museum.
Partners
Premiere partner
