Performative lecture “The Study of Witches” / Inga Kuznecova and Monika Klimaitė

Idea, performance: Inga Kuznecova, Monika Klimaitė 

Music performance: Jolita Seniūnaitė

Location: @Hofas (Danės g. 8, Klaipėda)
Duration: 60 min.

RECOMMENDED for positive witch hunters. Free entrance

The performative lecture “The Study of Witches” is based on the historical shadows of witch hunts and/or witch trials, which may have shaped not only the position of women in society, but also destroyed the extremely close ties between man and nature, and at the same time, their interdependence. As a starting point, the authors use Olga Ravn's work “The Wax Doll”, written based on historical sources about the first witch trial in Denmark. The intertwined historical and folkloric layers reveal the structural, social and cultural position of women in society.

Using the witch archetype, the relationship of women with nature, the subconscious and historical memory is revealed as a form of resistance to rational, patriarchal control. In order to rediscover and rethink this relationship, the authors examine the phenomenon of the witch both in historical contexts – revealing social, political structures and the influence of religion, and in images based on fiction and (or) mythology, in which the witch is perceived as a being closely connected to nature and at the same time as a threat to the rational human world. In the face of today’s sociopolitical and ecological crises, we see the ‘witch’ as ​​a heroine – an aspiration that knows how to re-create a meaningful connection with the beyond worlds within ordinary reality, seeking social, cultural and ecological communion with the environment around us.

The work was created during the creative residency at ArtsIceland, Ísafjörður – the most remote and harshest part of Iceland, 24 February - 24 March 2026.

Monika Klimaitė is a theatre director and theorist, a doctoral student in art at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. In her work, she is interested in contemporary theatre, collective creation and new ways of creating performances.

Inga Kuznecova is a choreographer, dancer, lecturer at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre and a doctoral student. In her doctoral studies, she explores the connections between contemporary dance and space, looking for ways to explore the human relationship with space through movement and the body.