NAVIGACIJOS (iš BLOGŲ ORŲ serijos) | Barokinio teatro mašinų performansas

“Navigations” (from the “Bad Weather” series)

Baroque theatre noise machines performance

Mariners oftentimes worked as stage hands in Baroque theatre. They coordinated stage machinery like they used to steer sailing ships. In the gallery version of “Bad Weather”, Baroque theatre machines that simulate the sounds of rain, wind and thunder move within the large and empty space along the routes of tropical cyclones and leave traces of plant seeds that float on the surface of the ocean. Ancient weather conditions, viewed from constantly shifting perspectives, become transformed into multiple experiences – a ritual to revel in.

In 2019 Arturas Bumšteinas was awarded special prize for the innovative and original solutions at the Lithuanian professional theatre awards – Borisas Dauguvietis Earring for the integration of audible experiments into new theatre forms (for the performances Bad Weather and Olympian Machine). In 2020 “Navigations” received an international Carapelli for Art prize, established by Carapelli Firenze S.p.A.

Concept and composition by Arturas Bumšteinas
Instrument maker Ernestas Volodzka
Produced by Operomanija
In cooperation with Kala Sound System

The performers are not making sound effects per se; what they are doing is more analogous to accomplished jazz musicians improvising their way through a well-known standard.

John Doran, The Quietus

Nevertheless, even formally we might regard this genre as mechanical machine theatre – a direct heir of the exotic art variety of the Baroque era in the present day studio, theatre or gallery. Perhaps this is where the artistic intrigue of this piece is hidden.

Tautvydas Bajarkevičius, Šiaurės Atėnai

The key experience related to Navigations is that of listening and hearing. Surely, it is very interesting to visually explore the wooden construction of Baroque machines. <…> In Navigations the sound producing machines are not hidden – they are deliberately openly exhibited. The act of sound production turns into the subject of performance.

Ramunė Balevičiūtė, menufaktura.lt

Duration: 40 minutes (no intermission)

Premiere: October 10–12, 2017 (Kraków, “Cricoteka”, “Unsound” – theatrical version), September 19, 2019 (Vilnius, National Gallery of Art – gallery version)