Kaunas Jewish Community Member Delights Modern Dance Enthusiasts

Kaunas Jewish Community member Liza Baliansnaja is presented her conceptual dance performance Residual at the AURA+ performance space on January 18. She was a member of the Kaunas dance troupe Aura from 2009 to 2011, then moved to the Netherlands and last year was graduated from the prestigious PARTS school of theatrical art and choreography in Belgium last year.

Her solo work could be called a sketch, she said. But that doesn’t mean Residual is incomplete, she cautions. In a way the piece reflects the dancer’s desire to shake off stress from striving for a perfect dance performance. She said she sought to reactivate the connection between the viewer and the actions on stage, creating a space for new ideas. Based on the connection of the libretto of the ballet the Sylph (Sílfide, Sylphide, “air elemental” in alchemy) with exophilosophy, Baliansnaja presents a diversity of expression exploring this relationship from different perspectives. How are we understood from the perspective of non-human life-forms? What is characteristically human as viewed from the outside, in the eyes of other beings?