Vaiva Grainytė

Master Class
19-23 June, 2024
Biennale Teatro, Venice

Sun and Sea
30 May – 1 June, 2024
Singapore International Festival of Arts, Singapore

Literary discussion
7 May, 2024
International Congress of Literature, Vilnius

Have a Good Day!
18 April, 2024
Menų spaustuvė, Vilnius

Presentation of the poetry collection (reading)
21 March, 2024
Leipzig Book Fair, Leipzig

Sun and Sea
14-18 February, 2024
BLC, Business Leaders Centre, Kaunas

Sun and Sea
7-8 October, 2023
BITEF festival, Belgrade

Sun and Sea
15-17 September, 2023
Festival d’Automne à Paris, Paris

Residency: Creative Pastures
1 September – 1 October, 2023
Verpėjos, Kabeliai village, Lithuania

Sun and Sea
19-27 August, 2023
Taipei Arts Festival, Taiwan

Poetry of the Neighbours
5-11 July, 2023
Künstlerhaus Edenkoben, Germany

Reading/In conversation with Jan Wilm
1 July, 2023
Heidelberg Literature Festival, Germany

Sun and Sea
23-25 June, 2023
Cork Midsummer Festival, Ireland

Have a Good Day!
11 June, 2023
Teatrodomas festival, Šiauliai, LT

Sun and Sea
19-23 May, 2023
Wiener Festwochen, Vienna

Have a Good Day!
20-21 April, 2023
Menų spaustuvė, Vilnius, Lithuania

Sun and Sea
16-19 March, 2023
Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Have a Good Day!
3-5 February, 2023
Teatri di Vita/Art City Bologna, Italy

Sun and Sea
27-30 January, 2023
Fundación Teatro a Mil/ Santiago a Mil International Festival, Chile

Sun and Sea
6-8 January, 2023
Sydney Festival, Australia

What a privilege to be translated by brilliant poet Lara Rüter and to be sharing the same reading desk at Leipzig Book Fair! The outcome of beautiful concept by Hans Thill: 6 Lithuanian poets translated by 6 German poets, published by Daswunderhorn.

The French premiere of Sun and Sea (September 15-17th) took place on a stunningly huge beach at the La Grande Halle La Villette with half a hundred local vacationers. The opera performance was included in the program of Festival d’Automne à Paris, one of the world’s famous art festivals. This show was organised together with the Philharmonie de Paris in collaboration with Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection. Thank you everyone who made it possible!

Okay, these are my 58 fellows herded into the sunrise fog; a quotidian activity I’m recently engaged. Until the end of the month I’ll be a qualified shepherd lady, hah.

From now on I’m living in Kabeliai village, by the Belarusian border, which is the birthplace of my beloved scholar Algirdas Uždavinys. I’m studying the (Egyptian) Book of the Dead, translated by him, herding sheep, and getting to know incredibly inspiring people of the area. Seriously, attending The Creative Pastures residency is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made!

The famous ‘meatball’ building – Taipei Performing Arts Centre where we got to run the beach starting from August 16th to 28th. Funnily enough our attendance at the legendary  Taipei Arts Festival was happening on the Seventh Lunar Month, so it overlapped with lots of  mysterious celebrations of the Ghost Month. Thank you, all the beautiful, most generous and the kindest people and deities of Taiwan! This was a breathtaking wrap up of the summer 2023.

The Listening House (2022) features a replica of a solitary beach cabin, which is meant to be placed outdoor, and houses the captured bits of the opera-performance originally performed in Venice. The booth suggests not only the isolated attendance of a listener, but also the private engagment in nostalgia and the karaoke of a memory.

The work was selected by the Commissioning Committe 2021/23 and recently acquired through the Hartwig Art Production | Collection Fund.

The photo is a bit crappy, but I just wanted to give an impression of what was happening in German Toscana on July 5-11. Six Lithuanian poets (Simonas Bernotas, Nerijus Cibulskas, Birutė Grašytė-Black, Tautvyda Marcinkevičiūtė, Donatas Petrošius and me) got to meet six German poets, who were carefully looking for a new home for our lines in a foreign language. I appreciate the opportunity to have been able to revise/rethink/attend the archaeological expedition of my old texts. I am thankful to wonderful authors-translators: Lara Rüte, Sonja vom Brocke, Dagmara Kraus, Uwe Kolbe, Marcus Roloff and Thomas Kunst. Hearing a couple of different versions of each poem was a very unique and indeed psychoanalytical experience. We all were living in Edenkoben, at a Künstlerhaus, amidst the vineyards, but the photo is due to demonstrate the multilayered reading we had.

It was a joy not only to be part of the vibrant International Feelit. Heidelberg International Literature Festival, but also to meet brilliant people behind the scenes – Andrea Edel, the head of the UNESCO City of Literature Heidelberg, who gave the most heart-warming welcome. It was a pleasure to be in conversation with literature critic and novelist Jan Wilm, who has meticulously guided through ‘Gorilla’s Archives’ and sad beaches. The poems were carefully read by Claudia Kramatschek using selected German translations by Claudia Sinnig, Markus Roduner and Cornelius Hell. I’ve missed the readings of Geetanjali Shree (International Booker Prize 2022) and Tsitsi Dangarembga (Man Booker Prize shortlist, 2020 and PEN International Award for Freedom of Expression), but got to listen to spoken poetry from UK, performed by Reece Williams, and I’ve attended utterly inspiring Xiaolu Guo’s talk! Also I took a Philosopher’s walk and visited amazing Prinzhorn Collection (art by people with exceptional psychological experience), which was so overwhelming that I forgot my swimming plans.

Sun and Sea has brought us to Ireland and is being performed at Cork Midsummer Festival in a City Hall on the June 23-25th. We got briefly to enjoy ferns, butter, Blarney castle, poisonous gardens and did some singing at the secret men-only pub. Thank you, Ireland, the beloved team members, and the alliance of stars – to amplify midsummer in such a special way.

The house at Šiauliai State Theatre was full, even though it’s a 13 year-old piece (!!). Legendary opera Have a Good Day! was shown twice at Teatrodromas festival on the June 11th. Ana, the producer of the work, has counted it was the 85th show!

Today’s office: opera-performance Sun and Sea at Wiener Festwochen, May 19-23rd at gorgeous Atelierhaus der Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien (Semperdepot).

Due to the technical limitations, sadly I cannot upload the video of the Argentinian backstage on my news feed. So I’m sharing a tiny bit of the surreal and wonderful exhibition, hosted by the Colón Fábrica in Buenos Aires, Argentina. On the 16-19th of March Sun and Sea was performed at the former warehouse, which currently serves as a scenography museum of the biggest and most important theatre in Latin America – Colón Teatro. We’re proud and honored to be the first show to open the space for the future performative events in the area of La Boca! We’ve witnessed the most special corrida here: a magical clash of the old and the new traditions.

Tune in to the latest episode of Radio GAMeC 30, a podcast presented by GAMeC – Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo. A conversation between the authors of the Sun and Sea and Lorenzo Giusti, the director of the Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art of Bergamo: here.

Back to my beloved Bolognia: with some Covid twists and magic Jonas Mekas overlaps! Audience members thought it is was our new piece…

I’m very happy to be part of the editorial board of this excellent project published by Lithuanian Culture Institute. This time the 4th issue of ‘* As a Journal’ magazine is guest-edited by artist, curator and writer Neringa Černiauskaitė and is accompanied by my poem. See the biopsy of the newest issue here.

Two weeks ago, my husband took me diving in Australia.
Two photographers swam after us – included in the price!
(…)
What a relief that the Great Barrier Reef has a restaurant and hotel!
We sat down to sip our piña coladas – included in the price!
They taste better under the water, simply a paradise!..

Fragment of the Wealthy Mommy’s song from Sun and Sea libretto I’ve written sometime in 2017. And now on The Sydney Town Hall is turned into a 1.020 m² beach as part of the Sydney Festival on 6-8 January 2023 with the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs and the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Choir joining the sunbathing rite. Looks like some witchcraft. Mind your words and deeds!

At the end of the year of 2022 Sun and Sea landed not only in its hometown Vilnius, but also in most picturesque venue. On December 5-13 the epic serpentines of Vilnius Taxi park have hosted ~ 15 000 visitors, who had experienced the piece at its core – it was sung in Lithuanian. 

I must say this was the most enjoyable and stimulating contribution this year! I’m super happy and proud to be part of this wonderful project. Huge thanks to the curator Caterina Molteni and my translators – Jeremy Hill (EN) and Allessandra Cali (IT), who made Silenus, The Ear of Anna Morandi, and all the dionysia of associations speak both English and Italian. More info on e-flux.

With the brilliant duo – Liana Ruokytė and Mikael Nydahl – translators of my poems into Swedish, which were presented at the Goteborg book fair Rum för Poesi and at the Room of World Poetry in Stockholm. Recently uploaded here. 

Great way to leave Helsinki at 5am for Bologna discovering my name in Finnish means ‘medical problem’. (So far so good, the usual cocktail of cortisol and adrenaline hitting.) 3 hours of flying and I’m immersed in a jaw-dropping exhibition of Ercole Lelli’s Anatomical Waxworks at the Museo di Palazzo Poggi. Very excited to start my research for the upcoming MAMbo project The Floating Collection.

10 cashiers were singing in Visaginas, a town build for workers at the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant in 1975.

Hot and intense July in London ended with the Back to Earth panel discussion as part of the event ‘Equilibrium: A public gathering on environmental justice‘ curated by Radical Ecology and produced by Holly Shuttleworth. The authors of Sun & Sea engaged in a discussion with musical performer Love Ssega, social entrepreneur Hilary Cottam, and the artistic director of the Serpentine Galleries Hans Ulrich Obrist.

The black volcanic beach was crowded with our beloved singers, almost 80 (!) amazing volunteering beachgoers and lovely audience! Such an extraordinary experience for two summer days in Iceland, as part of the Listahátíð í Reykjavík / Reykjavik Arts Festival, in collaboration with the Reykjavík Art Museum.

Book launch event of the collage novel Roses and Potatoes in conversation with Jungian psychotherapist Egidija Šeputytė at Kaunas Botanical Garden at the International Congress “CoHappiness. Rewilding & Rethinking”.

Launch of the collage novel Roses and Potatoes at Kaunas Puppet Theater at the International Kaunas Literature Week. In conversation with the journalist Kotryna Lingienė and art critic Vaidas Jauniškis.

Sun and Sea listening edition, 2022
Castello di Rivoli ESPRESSIONI CON FRAZIONI
April 24 – November 25, 2022

The replica of a solitary beach cabin installed on the front lawn of the Castello di Rivoli museum evokes daydreaming and socialising on holiday. In the beach cabin, visitors can listen to the recorded songs of Sun & Sea; memories of the songs, of their fragmented stories and of the scattered melodies of the beachgoers invite the audience to embrace pandemic and post-pandemic existences. On the occasion of the exhibition ESPRESSIONI CON FRAZIONI, the filmmaker, theatre director and visual artist Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė with the writer, playwright and poet Vaiva Grainytė and with the artist and composer Lina Lapelytė present Sun & Sea listening edition (2022), a mixed media installation derived from of the opera-performance Sun & Sea (Marina).