Rugile Barzdžiukaite
Vaiva Grainyte
Lina Lapelyte Sun & Sea

Sun & Sea an "opera-performance" by the Lithuanian artists Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, Lina Lapelytė and Vaiva Grainytė is presented for the first time in France after being performed all over the globe. Winner of the Golden Lion at Venice Biennale in 2019, Sun & Sea is an artistic object the experience of which is not only memorable, but also, more than anything, salutary. Imagine a beach…

Let us imagine a beach that we are gazing upon from above, our vision taking in all the auditory and visual micro-fictions concomitantly at work at each instant. The eye observes the ballet of living bodies in the sun, while our ears tune into the symphony of muffled sounds. From amidst this scene in front of us on the sand, with its slothful bodies in varied states of relaxation, voices ring out, those of choirs and arias. In an unknowing, unconscious, unperturbed way, they can be heard over and over again over the course of four hours. They reel off a succession of everyday melodies, songs which speak of worry or boredom, in a hypnotic litany - the dramatic litany of the perils that hover our existences due to global-warming, and words the meaning of which have lost all sense due to their omnipresence in the medias… An "Opera-performance" composed of a trio made up of the music of Lina Lapelytė, the libretto by Vaiva Grainytė and directed by Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, Sun & Sea made an impact in 2019, when it represented Lithuania at the Venice Biennale, carrying off the Golden Lion award. Is it micro-fiction or macro-reality? Musical theatre? An installation? A living tableau? Or a TV series? Whilst Sun & Sea certainly is a masterful piece of work, it is also very much an invitation to listen carefully, and to be attentive to a certain usage of time, as well as to others and the world around us.