Agnietė Lisičkinaitė

HANDS UP is a physical body posture that recurs in many different cultural, social and religious contexts, capturing the multi-layered nature of its content. The context I have chosen is protest culture.

In Lithuania, protest is identified with the strongly romanticised Sąjūdis era, but in the context of recent world events, from a sociological perspective, it is worth questioning the thesis of protest culture as a good in itself. Unconstructive protest is a convenient form for anarchy to take root.

The choreographic performance inspired by protest culture questions the fragile distance between surrender and submission, reconciliation and resistance. It raises the question: what kind of Protest Baby will we raise - as a symbol of freedom or as a symbol of aggression?

This is an investigation and, like one truth, there is no one answer.

Photo by Dainius Putinas