“CIRCLE OF RASAS”

The project “Circle of Rasas” has brought together various Lithuanian artists from across
the disciplines including singer, actress and director Brigita Bublytė, improviser and jazz musician
Dominykas Vyšniauskas, the sutartinės singers and custodians of ethnic tradition Trys Keturiose
(led by Daiva Vyčinienė), choreographer Sigita Juraškaitė and visual artists Aurelija Maknytė
(video), Rūta Jurkūnaitė-Bruožienė (costumes) and Vilius Vilutis (lighting). Working in close
collaboration, these artists produced an interdisciplinary performance, inviting the audience to
engage in communal experience, where they reflect, here and now, on their inner states and outer
environment, choosing means of expression at their own discretion and expressing the freedom of
choice through their own instrument or medium, be it a voice, a trombone, a trumpet, a whistle,
dance, light, or video artwork. They became united by the idea that just anything, like milk frothers
or a cup of water for that matter, can become part of live creative communication that aims at the
beauty of a moment. All these means help build a bridge between the artists and their audience,
between tradition and innovation.
The elements of Lithuanian, Indian, Spanish cultural traditions lend inspiration for live
improvisation and are used to facilitate the portrayal of certain human feelings or contemplative
states that are embraced in the Indian concept of rasa. In Sanskrit, rasa means “juice,” “lymph,” or
“sap,” “taste” or “flavour.” It manifests itself as an abstract, pure beauty, an “aesthetic flavour,”
which reflects the inwardness of human emotions and, by transforming them, reveals itself as
conscious blissful existence that therefore transcends all cultural borders. There are nine principal
rasas arising from the corresponding human feelings, such as love, joy, sorrow, anger, courage,
fear, disgust, astonishment, and serenity. Indian philosophers believed that the work of art should
derive from love (the joy of getting together, the sorrow of being apart, the fear of loss etc.) and
embody various, often ineffable rasas in all their colourful diversity and constant change, leading
eventually to contemplation and quiescence. The junction and indissoluble unity between change
and permanence, motion and rest is perhaps best and most gracefully represented in the symbol of
circle or wheel.
The “Circle of Rasas” is thus constructed around the sutartinės – ancient Lithuanian
polyphonic folk songs – because of their structural semblance to a circle. They seem to have no
ending and to be extemporized during the very act of vocal performance: “you just collect words;
you can collect as many as you wish.”
Five compositions that make up this performance revolve around the following rasas and
their corresponding colours:
 LOVE, LUST – SRINGARA – dark shades of night
JOY, MERRIMENT – HASYA – eye-catching colours, especially various shades of gold
SORROW, GRIEF – KARUNA – dovelike shade of grey, soft shades of rainbow
COURAGE, VIRILITY – VIRA – deep red
QUIESCENCE, CONTEMPLATION – SANTHA – white

Brigita Bublytė – original idea, director, singer.

Dominykas Vyšniauskas – trumpet, flugelhorn, valve tombone, percussion, objects.

The group of sutartines singers “Trys keturiose”:

dr. Daiva Vyčinienė (leader)

Daina Norvaišytė

Eglė Sereičikienė

Rima Visackienė

Audronė Žilinskienė

Rūta Jurkūnaitė-Bruožienė – costume designer.

Aurelija Maknytė – projection designer

Vilius Vilutis – light and sound designer

Sigita Juraškaitė – choreographer, directing asistant

Organizors:

Anykščių menų inkubatorius menų studija

Daiva Perevičienė – director

Kamilė Bitvinskaitė – consultant

Lina Juodelienė – financial director

Sponsors:
Premiere:

24th Sepetember, 2016, Anykščiai