"ConTempo" is the largest international performing arts festival in central Lithuania, attracting audiences from all over Lithuania and beyond.
The festival, which started in 2009, has gained the trust of both foreign and Lithuanian creators and audiences over the past five years and has steadily established itself in the list of the main events of Kaunas city and district. "ConTempo's mission: to challenge the performing arts, the city and the audience.
The stage for the festival's events is usually the public, open and unconventional spaces of Kaunas city and district towns.The diversity of locations is determined by the lack of professional indoor spaces for performing arts in Kaunas, the change of performing arts disciplines as they cross clear genre boundaries and intertwine with each other, as well as by the flexibility of the works themselves, the ability to adapt to different spaces - then the work itself "sounds" differently, opening up even more meanings and possibilities of experiencing it. Not only the open spaces, but also the fact that part of the festival's programme is presented free of charge, makes it possible for a wider and more diverse audience to participate in performing arts events. The event does not seek to please the public, but on the contrary, it presents a professional, bold, conceptual programme that reflects the country's and the city's topicality in order to provoke and stimulate the development of the performing arts field, to awaken critical thinking and to inspire dialogues in various directions and on various themes - artistic, social, political, and others.
By implementing part of the programme in Kaunas district, the festival undoubtedly contributes to the accessibility of culture, increasing the diversity of quality cultural life, develops new models of cooperation, and contributes to the formation of a more modern repertoire of peripheral cultural institutions.
