Monstera Deliciosa is a creeping vine with huge, serrated leaves that has been a popular decoration in clinics, schools, libraries, apartments and private homes for more than 30 years. Under favourable conditions, the monstera grows rapidly and expands to fill the space around it. Nurturing plants and the well-being of others – the invisible day to day work of care is also carried out by the women around us, filling the empty spaces in the social landscape. Monstera Deliciosa brings together on stage four women from different generations to tell their own stories while singing the stories of other women. In a densely packed soundscape coexists the everyday worries of a public toilet attendant and the environmental concerns of a young ecofeminist, the desire to balance and strengthen the sometimes fragile bonds that unite and hold us together. The libretto was created by meeting and listening to women living in Latvia and Estonia who take care of plants and people around them in their daily lives, while the original music was created by transforming the genre of chamber opera through the tradition of choral singing that Latvians and Estonians share. Between the black earth and the plastic flowers, the creative team is looking for ways to grow, flourish and be with each other in the world we inhabit. Monstera Deliciosa was nominated for two Latvian theatre awards (for best small form work and new musical work) for the season of 2023/2024.
ARTISTS:
Barbara Lehtna, Līva Blūma, and Linda Krūmiņa started working together in 2022. The collective focuses on Eastern European feminist narratives and seemingly insignificant everyday stories of regular women whose voices are often left unheard. The collective explores themes of social class and the climate crisis, creating intimate yet transformative experiences for audiences. Their work blends operatic traditions with contemporary issues, creating spaces for dialogue. As of now, they are busy creating their second contemporary chamber opera, Cantus Firmus, which will premiere in October 2025.
Karolin Poska is a Tallinn based choreographer, performance artist and dancer. Through her creative activities she tries to understand what it is like to be alive nowadays. She likes to play with objects, transform reality and mess with the audience’s expectations. Poska recently completed her contemporary art studies at the Estonian Academy of Arts, where she received the Young Artist Award for her final work. Her recent performance “For your nirvana” was nominated for the Dance Awards of Estonia in 2020.
Sansusī was born as an alternative festival for chamber music in 2014, gathering Latvian and European music and stage art professionals for three day art bang in the forest in the south part of Latvia. Since then it happens annually. Already on second year association Sansusī started to work on the new productions. The newest one is performance for children in the form of concert show named “Strange People Stand Very Strangely”. The group “Strange people” as we calling this group of Latvian artists in exact combination contents from composer and electronic music guru Platons Buravickis, an opera singer Armands Siliņš – Bergmanis, stage director and actor Klāvs Mellis, cinematographer Lāsma Bērtule, choreographer and dancer Madara Luīze Muzikante, light designer Niks Cipruss and sound engineer Tālis Timrots.
Concert show “Strange People Stand Very Strangely” is based on the cycle for opera voice and analog synthesizers by composer Platons Buravickis with Daniil Harms poetry. In cycle there is used different 21st century academic music composition techniques combined with club dance music rhythms, scenography made with analog projectors and in projections there is used different camera trick techniques. All together it makes a perfect rave for children and others!