ECHOPRAXIA | INФOPSIN
26 NOVEMBER, 2021
GALLERY 1986, VILNIUS, LITHUANIA
ECHOPRAXIA – an opera produced by an international artist collective INФOPSIN and performed in Lithuania for the first time. A group of dancers, choreographers, opera soloists, artists for one evening will synthesize electronic music, dance, fashion, and contemporary art at the industrial spaces of gallery 1986.
Echopraxia in Greek etymology is an involuntary urge to imitate the movements of other persons. Beginning with simple gestures, rhythms and voice, this unintentional mimicry becomes a reoccurring, yet perpetually evolving leitmotif of the piece. Gradually developing into a pulsating and complex manifold of music, choreography, and image, it eventually fills, outgrows, and pours outside the space of gallery 1986.
Amid this swelling and surging action, the opera’s plot is gradually unraveled: at first similar and hardly distinguishable, the characters grow more individual and memorable. Through words, dances, and songs the actors narrate their hopes and anxieties while trying to imagine a future against a backdrop of an ever repetitive present. Reality is always already fantastic, yet is there still space for fantasy?
Thus, in the opera, the motif of ‘echopraxia’ unfolds as a metaphor. It expresses not only that the world is continually molding us, but also that we ourselves reciprocally form the world. Technologies, ideas, and habits leave marks on our bodies, ruptures in our movements, patterns in our thoughts. Imperceptibly, did not our economy become a biological, rather than a social category? Is exchange not our sixth sense, dominating the remaining five? The perpetual metabolism of materials, content, and value gave nature a human face. Do we recognize it? Did we arrive where we wanted? Do we know where further to go?
Artist collective INФOPSIN
Ragnhild Aamås (NO)
Lesia Vasilchenko (UA)
Istvan Virag (HU)
Ayatgali Tuleubek (KZ)
Ignas Krunglevičius (LT)
Organised by
Swallow
Autarkia
Partners
gallery 1986
Kunsthall Oslo
Supported by
Lithuanian Council for Culture
Arts Council Norway
Norwegian Visual Artists Fund
Choreography
Magdalene Solli
Synne Elve Enoksen
Soprano
Silje Aker Johnsen
Voice
Javon Ryon Bennett
Performers
Magdalene Solli
Synne Elve Enoksen
Nikita Berezko
Greta Bernotaitė
Valerija Gneuševa
Petras Lisauskas
Edvinas Mikulskis
Saulė Noreikaitė
Elmyra Ragimova
Austėja Vilkaitytė
CREDITS