THEATER "ARBTVAKARIAI" is the performances of "Meno eksansijos" Public Company, which started to be created in alternative spaces in 2011. They were born as a new interactive form of artistic expression - a kind of living historical documentary, when the viewer is not just a passive observer, but is consciously involved in the action and becomes a witness or even a participant of historical events.
Our most significant projects: the musical performance "Burning cannot be spared. Manifesto of Joana Arkietė", paraphrase for voice and piano "Letter from a Stranger", performance "Post Scriptum", performances-tea parties "Lig Tave lauksim...", "Old Vilnius Icons", "Living Green", "On the Way to Paradise", " The missing Vilnius Nightingale", "Ludvisė. From Vilnius to Constantinople", "My Homeland - near his heart", "Events in Paradise", "The Evening of the Century", "Golden Tower", "Swan Song", "You miss me...", "Christmas stories", "Kite waiting room" ", "Gēlynos taika", "Mūsų Bėja", "Nāmā dainos", festival of artistic initiatives "SALVE!". All these projects were created and adapted to alternative theater spaces (performed in Vilnius Town Hall, Saint Catherine's Church, Saint John's Church, M.K. Čiurlionis' house, Biržuvėnai, Jašiūnai manors, Jonas Basanavičius' birthplace in Ozkabaliai, L. Truikis and M. Rakauskaitė Memorial Museum in Kaunas, Levandės port (Buikai village), Vagnerii Palace in Šalčininkai, etc.), until the Marijas and Jurgis Šlapeliai house-museum was chosen as the most suitable experimental space. All the premises of the museum (gallery, basement, courtyard, living room, memorial rooms, bookstore) were gradually adapted and turned into acting spaces. Finally, it was decided to establish a space specially designed for holding a tea party - HOME THEATER, located in the old town of Vilnius, behind the Aušra Gate.
What are historical TEA PARTIES? In the 1900s, on the initiative of priest Juozaps Ambraziejaus, the first gathering of Lithuanian Lithuanians in Vilnius, called a tea evening, was organized in Römer's house on Bokšto Street. As it should be, with tickets. During it, it was called to organize Lithuanian language lessons, which Jurgis Šaulys, who had left the Priests' Seminary, agreed to conduct. In 1901, a second tea party was held at the house of Count Ignacis Korvin-Milevskis on Trakai Street. This evening, it was decided to retake the Lithuanian services at St. Nicholas Church. Soon, in the house of Antanas and Emilijas Vileišiau at 25 Jurgis (now Gediminas) avenue, Lithuanian performances-tea parties, called family gatherings, were held, for which later their organizers had to explain themselves to the police more than once. The third tea party was organized after getting the press back, officially, with the permission of the Vilnius authorities, even with publicly posted advertisements. It was held in the fall of 1904, on the initiative of Povilas Matulaitis, in a rented hall in a large house outside the Aušra Varta. Tea parties resembled meetings without minutes, but with a summary: "what will we do?". The participants of the tea parties were intellectuals and workers, Lithuanians and non-Lithuanians, who could and did not know Lithuanian. After those evenings, a number of young people from poor Lithuanian families appeared who wanted to learn Lithuanian.