‘Shy palms’, a site-specific performance is a work on warmth, intimacy and the different layers of time that comes to life in the spaces of the fort IV in Kaunas, Lithuania.

Physical realities of Fort IV - that is cold and wet - are brought to breathe through the three performers. Relying on oneself yet staying in constant exchange, they charge and support one another into a momentum that spins, settles and spreads again, offering warmth to the heavy-structured buildings, tunnels and meadows.

Objects appear unexpectedly, light and sound accompany and guide one another, enabling the given qualities of spaces to flicker and expand into an imagined space of a human that dreams.

The architecture of Fort IV forms the dramaturgy of the work: from the depth that can be accessed, staying with the heaviness of the walls, moving towards vastness of experiencing one’s being in a meadow.

Choreographers Grėtė Šmitaitė (LT/DE) and Sunayana Shetty (IND/DE) as well as musician Vincenz Kokot (DE) started working with warmth in spaces of Kaunas Fortress in August 2018. Accompanied by Jokūbas Nosovas they presented ‘Winter Garden’ (‘Battery’ Festival Kaunas, October 2018). The work continued in 2019 in the form of developing 'Shy Palms'.

Concept, performance: Grėtė Šmitaitė, Sunayana Shetty | Music, performance: Vincenz Kokot | Light: Linas Kutavičius | Set design: Jurgis Šmitas | Supervision: Dovilė Gasiūnaitė | Graphic design: Monika Šiliūnaitė | Communication: Vaida Stepanovaitė | Pictures: Gvidas Kovėra

Supported by: Lithuanian Council for Culture; Arts Printing House, International Residency Programme; Kaunas Fortress Park

Thanks to: Tanzfabrik Berlin, I.D.R.A. Milan.

Premiered: 11, 12, 13 October, 2019, Kaunas Fort IV , Lithuania