As A Journal #9 - Vessel

To perform in the present tense is to insist on aliveness. It is a quiet yet defiant conviction that love and art remain vital forms of knowledge.

Defne Ayas (DA)

‘I saw the best theatre performance of the season already’, declared Lithuanian theatre critic Vaidas Jauniškis just days after witnessing Ivo Dimchev’s Some Faves in 2012. The Bulgarian artist’s performance – a fierce blend of radical vulnerability, operatic voice, and disarming humour – was both grotesque and tender, garnering praise from theatre and contemporary art audiences alike. That same opening weekend featured choreographer Alexandra Bachzetsis’s A Piece Danced Alone, a series of deceptively simple solos where two performers mirrored, recorded, exchanged, and gradually transformed one another’s gestures. The New York–based ‘director of behaviour’, Michael Portnoy’s 100 Openings followed, Mindaugas, directed live, performed endless permutations of the theatrical ‘big entrance,’ refracting a single trope into miniature worlds of nuance and absurdity.