Performance "Words Spreading Through the Forests"

This is a sensitive and evocative story about two partisan poets – Diana Glemžaitė and Irena Petkutė. The performance brings to life their life and creative stories, marked by resistance, creativity and tragic fate in post-war Lithuania.

Teacher Irena Petkutė retreated to the forest when the NKVD began to persecute her for “incorrect” poems she read in class. In the underground, she published the newspaper “Prayer in the Forest”. The poet was tracked down in a bunker in the Samogitian region, but she did not surrender to the occupiers – she chose death by her own hand.

Diana Glemžaitė, a student at Kaunas University of Philology, chose the forest after the Soviets exposed her connections with the partisans. While living with the partisans, she married, had a stillborn daughter, and was killed along with her husband, Juozas Bulovas, when the NKVD blew up their bunker.
Today, more than ever, we must focus on those luminaries who inspired freedom, rather than succumbing to doubt and conformity.

Cast: Inga Juškevičiūtė, Jurga Kalvaitytė

Authors of the idea and staging: Jurga Kalvaitytė, Urtė Šėjūnaitė

Director: Urtė Šėjūnaitė
Video projection artist: Kornelijus Jaroševičius
Composer: Vygintas Kisevičius
Set and costume designer: Jurgita Jankutė

The project is funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture.