RAINFAIR

“The Weather” is a dreamlike work based on a meteorological diary written in 19th-century Boston, in which laconic notes about weather changes gradually reveal themselves as traces of a vanished everyday world. Between the lines devoted to weather observations, fragile signs of human life begin to emerge: passing neighbors, distant celebrations, relatives, losses, as if the entire community were briefly illuminated by the changing light of the sky.

Two performers, Lora Kmieliauskaitė and Julija Bagdonavičiūtė, sit without their usual instruments, listen to a recording of themselves playing through speakers, and live read and sing selected fragments from the diary. In this way, they engage in a kind of dialogue with their own duplicitous voices and instruments, which are pre-recorded.
The music, like the recited texts, is organized using random numbers generated from meteorological data. The twelve-tone structures slowly move back and forth, embodying composer Artur Bumštein's idea that musical harmony is a phenomenon that emerges through constant repetition.

The continuous flow of the diary narrative is complemented by ambient audio recordings made in the corridors of music schools, in which different voices, times and spaces begin to overlap. A similar uncertainty is transferred to the relationship with the diary itself: the fidelity to the text characteristic of the Western musical tradition here clashes with the freedom of interpretation, since handwritten notes cannot always be unambiguously deciphered.

Creative team:

Arturas Bumšteinas is a composer.
Lora Kmieliauskaitė is a performer.
Julija Bagdonavičiūtė is a performer.
Morta Jonynaitė is a costume designer.
Juozapas Švelnys – visual communication.

Event organizer: Užpaliai Manor.
Event partner: Kosmos theatre and Between Silence.
Date: November 14, 2026 at 3:45 p.m.
Location: Užpaliai Manor, Vytauto St. 11, Užpaliai, Utena District.
Admission is free.