EXERCISES OF (BE)LONGING

Description

If you have applied for this performance, a digital package will be sent to your e-mail. All spots for the performance are booked!

Exercises of (be)longing is a one-on-one live telephone-performance happening from the safety and warmth of your own home. As an audience member, you will receive a package containing 5 envelopes* filled with someone’s photos. Each envelope is marked with a phone number and a specific time when to call that number**. On the other end of the call, you’ll have a possibility to meet the people who have sent you the photos loaded with stories about their dreams, desires, and fears around the concepts of “longing” and “belonging”.

There are 20 anonymous people from Latvia performing simultaneously and the five people performing specially for you will be chosen by chance. Please make sure to be ready on the allocated time in a space where you can be alone and concentrate.

* due to the distance and the new COVID-19 restrictions, the audience of the showcase will receive the package in a digital format on their e-mail addresses provided through the registration form

** the phone calls for the showcase will happen through WhatsApp in order to not have any extra cost, please download the application before your allocated time

Below a small taste of some of the stories you might have a possibility of experiencing:

Woman, 36

The photo is from the time I moved to the island. It wasn’t of course easy as I was considered a stranger, someone who’s here only to take their men and.. yeah. But I was in love and I wanted to of course be with him so I didn’t care that much at first. Maybe only later it became important to ask myself how can I be a part of this community? Is this where I belong? And if I do, then why am I longing for something else? Honestly, it was a really terrible time for me, I became depressed and somehow.. maybe distant from other people. Also, all the drinking that went on here, I had never seen anything like it before. Or this kind of jealousy of your neighbour… So yes, I think I learned how to belong, but the price to pay was really big, because I’m not at all sure anymore what’s left of me. Maybe that’s why I’ve now, after 13 years, started to think of moving back and leaving this place.

Man, 34

I think that in this picture my sister is already maybe 13 years old and I’m about six or seven. I’m on my father’s lap and my sister is standing next to us and we actually seem happy, so yes… and yes, this is one of the photos where I have painted my father totally black. Even the fingers that are holding me… I’ve painted him totally black. I guess it’s because.. well, my mother always told me that when I grow up, I’ll finally understand why our situation at home was how it was, but when I was a child.. I think I didn’t understand the pain or the anger and I needed to do something to make it go away. To make him go away. Now, I of course think I could have maybe only painted his eyes or face as he now looks like a big monster in the photo. A big black monster… but I guess that’s who he was in my eyes.

Woman, 52

I think the photo speaks a lot about the situation. I think this is the beginning of the wedding party and you can see my body language… this person does not really seem happy, does she? I mean, of course we were in love and the feeling was there, but I should have never gone through with this party from where I knew maybe 15 people out of a hundred? Of course I was just also very tired and very worried about my health. I was already four months pregnant and I had just had the first signs of having a miscarriage. So maybe it was just an instinct to step out of the situation? I mean, I of course attended and did it all.. I guess you could say mechanically: dress on, walk down the aisle, say yes, eat, sleep. But I was alone in that situation and I just wanted someone to come to me and say that I understand you and I got you. For someone to hug me and tell me I’m accepted.

Credits

Location

Online

Tickets

Artist / Company biography

Dirty Deal Teatro is an open platform for contemporary theatre and dance founded in 2007. Devised performances and original contemporary plays are the core of the theatre’s repertoire. Dirty Deal Teatro collaborates with artists whose work reflects political and social issues of our time or gives the possibility to look at common notions from an unusual angle. Big part of theatre’s mission is to work with young theatre artists so that they would have time and space to develop their own, unique artistic voice. Dirty Deal Teatro has also a program for children and youth. Widening the understanding of what is theatre and how it can tackle serious topics is important for children just as it is for adults.

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