Liza Baliasnaja (Lithuania / Germany) – CHIAROSCURO
Duration: 45 min.
Performance Chiaroscuro is part of an ongoing artistic research by Liza Baliasnaja, exploring how emotions like fear and disgust shape political subjectivity in times of social polarization. The frightened body and its grotesque expressions are the focus of the work. By amplifying fear’s somatic manifestations, the performance leans into the emotional exaggeration characteristic to baroque period paintings. The title refers to the baroque technique chiaroscuro, defined by the strong contrast between light and darkness.
When does care turn into violence, protection into domination, or victimhood into aggression? Chiaroscuro plays with the structural elements of populist discourse by embodying the social archetypes of the victimized sheep, the perpetrator wolf, and the protector sheepdog. It examines the power dynamics between these archetypes, unmasking their fluidity and interdependence.
Fear is difficult to contain. It travels quickly from one body to another, eventually consuming the social body as a whole. For that to happen, we don’t always need a tangible threat. Fear uproots us from the present, allowing fantasy to take over. But can fear be mistaken for discomfort in the face of someone different from myself? Chiaroscuro delves into the political significance of staying in the liminal space between entering and exiting, being scared and being dangerous, doing and being done to.
Liza Baliasnaja (b. Kaunas, 1994) is a choreographer and performer active between Germany and Lithuania. Her work is informed by ongoing research into themes of power, subjectivity, language and violence. Her recent performances have been presented at the festivals like Radiant Nights, Bâtard, New Baltic Dance, Almost Summer/ Feminist Futures, and Tanz.Tausch. As a performer and outside eye, she collaborated with artists like Eszter Salamon, Christine De Smedt, Lenio Kaklea, Mårten Spångberg, Ula Sickle, and Lina Lapelytė among others. She completed her dance training at P.A.R.T.S and holds a BA in philosophy from the university of KU Leuven.
Concept and choreography: Liza Baliasnaja
Performance and creation: Gabrielė Bagdonaitė, Amanda Barrio Charmelo, Sidney Barnes, Dominyka Markevičiūtė, Lina Puodžiukaitė
Text: Liza Baliasnaja and Sidney Barnes
Sound composition: Dominykas Digimas
Dramaturgical advice: Rūta Junevičiūtė
Costumes: Laura Stellacci
Performance coach: Grėtė Šmitaitė
Outside eye: Andrius Katinas
Production: Be Company/ Agnietė Lisičkinaitė
Residency support: Dansatelier, Kintai Arts Center, Pop-up residency at Tanzplatform Rhein-Main, Akee space for Culture, Kaunas Artist’s House
Supported by: Lithuanian Culture Council, Kunststiftung NRW, Lithuanian Contemporary Dance Association, Contempo Festival
Premiere: On August 7 and 8, 2024, at the “ConTempo” festival in Kaunas, Lithuania.
Instagram: @lizaliizaliiiza / @be_kompanijos
Facebook: @LizaBeliasnaja / @BeKompanijos
Photos by Edgaras Cickevičius, Lucie Schulze, Martynas Plepys.
