Blind date | MAMA, 2013
There seems to be a certain ambivalence between past and present in the former Eastern Bloc countries today. The collapse of the communist regimes led to unknown richness for few, poverty for many and an ideological vacuum for the majority. MAMA starts out in the Tritest on a tower block of the soviet era, but this cliché scenario rapidly is overcome by a sensual, emotional dialogue between a blind mother and her grown-up son.The focus concentrates on the intimate relationship of a young man with his blind mother, expressed by dancing: the internationally acclaimed Lithuanian dancer Andrius Strakele tries to get his mothers attention, while she is cleaning dishes and preparing dinner or listening to the TV, whose wrongly configured screen she doesn`t notice.Everything happens in the close surroundings of the apartment.Using “deconstruct and reconstructive” dancing movements, MAMA joints the intimacy of this microcosm. The physical exertion with soundfull breathing noises of her son provides reassurance and localization to the mother.Intense closeness also generates conflicts. This general principle certainly can be transferred to the political life of Lithuania. The connection between mother and son in all their vulnerability acts as an allegory of a political confrontation in a country where, despite all the promises in the process of democratization, nowadays resignation takes presidency . The younger well educated generation vigorously strives for opportunities and new forms of expression.The conflict-ridden forming of identity of the dancer, combined with self-conscious reflection on personal characteristics, acts as a parable on the situation of a generation, which is shaped entirely by a western consumer society but was raised by parents, which were blind to the drastically changed reality of their children.The family acts as the place of continuity in a rapidly changing uncertain environment. Controversial intimacy and dearly strangeness are results of a society which is still in alteration.
