"Sun and Sea" is a singing beach that the audience observes from above - from the perspective of the sun. In the work of artists Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, Vaiva Grainytė and Lina Lapelytė, performers dressed in bathing suits sunbathe, build sandcastles, read books, play games and have snacks, and sing while performing the usual beach routines. In the bright summer daylight, the thoughts of different characters, life concerns, memories, the composition of sun cream and morning plans to fry scrambled eggs are briefly voiced. But this image of a lazy vacation is just a carefree surface: bodies exposed to time and heat hide a premonition of the end - the transience of Earth and people. With gentle irony and anxiety-charged music, "Sun and Sea" tells about climate change, carnality, and the general weariness of man and the planet.
in 2019 awarded the prestigious "Golden Lion" at the Venice Art Biennale, the work maneuvers between many genres - live painting and installation, contemporary opera and performance, experimental theater and sound sculpture. Over the past four years, "Sun and Sea" has toured 33 cities in 26 countries, and this year it played in Sydney, Santiago, Chile, Buenos Aires, Taipei, Vienna, etc. The singing beach in Vilnius, which makes the country's name famous in the world, is displayed in a building of unique architecture - Vilnius taxi park, where, moving along the eight-story serpentine, spectators can observe the summer beach from different distances - zooming in, zooming out.
The facts
86,805 spectators visited the Lithuanian pavilion in Venice.
The opera performance was shown for 49 days and played for 398 hours.
108 people (32 at a time) and 8 dogs worked on the project.
More than 50 singers from different countries of the world sang.
More than 2,000 volunteers participated in the project.
The budget of the Lithuanian pavilion is 752 thousand. euros. In 2018-2019, the Lithuanian Culture Council allocated a total of over 193,000 for the creation and dissemination of "Sun and Sea". euros from the funds of the Culture Support Fund. 44,000 was spent on renting the pavilion, 44,000 on long-term installation of the pavilion, 86,000 on special installation and maintenance of the pavilion, 65,000 on compensation for creative staff, 46,000 on compensation for technical staff, 122,000 on compensation for singers, living in Venice - 179 thousand, for travel - 37 thousand, for events, publishing, advertising, photo and video documentation, paraphernalia - 129 thousand. euros.
