The performance is part of the Baltic Visual Theatre Showcase programme.

THE CHOICE | Movement and puppet performance for adults
Vilnius theatre “LĖLĖ”, Lithuania

During the Second World War, Edith Eger, her mother, father, sister and other Jewish families were sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. A ballet dancer and gymnast, she danced for Josef Mengele, also known as the Angel of Death. The belief that everything that was happening was only temporary, that soon she would be able to see her beloved one and parents, helped Edith to find strength and endure not only incomprehensible horror, cruelty, humiliation, dehumanization, exhausting work, hunger, diseases, the Road of Death, but also life afterwards: “When they liberated us, I was so weak I could not even speak, I could not move and only was lying in a pile of corpses. We became free, but we did not know what to do with that freedom of ours.” Edith’s parents were killed in a gas chamber. Her boyfriend was killed a day before the liberation. It took several years for Edita to learn to forgive – not only others, but also herself.

“I continue my duality journey. I am looking for a transformation of the living and non-living. A movement, a figure and a human being... Fragments of a human being, shells, and memories of a former life fly on the stage, which are only “fragments, brief moments or encounters, which together form the scrapbook of our life.” We constantly live among them. They cover us, hinder us, and sometimes push us forward. I believe it is important to meet your ghosts, look them in the eye and let them go. To choose life and light”, said Gintarė Radvilavičiūtė, Director of the play.

Director, puppet artist: Gintarė Radvilavičiūtė
Playwright: Virginija Rimkaitė
Choreographer: Sigita Mikalauskaitė
Composer: Rita Mačiūliūnaitė
Scenographer, costume designer: Julija Skuratova
Lighting designer: Vilius Vilutis

Workshop masters: Virginija Pajarskienė, Gintarė Vaivadaitė – Valaišienė, Marius Vaitkus, Justinas Šukaitis

Cast: Sigita Mikalauskaitė, Deivis Sarapinas, Lijana Muštašvili, Indrė Vėlyvytė, Eliza Bondarenko