CLAP & SLAP is a conversation about war, collective responsibility, and individual guilt, told through the stories of Lithuanian Agnietė Lisičkinaitė and Belarusian Igor Shugaleev. But it’s also a children’s documentary about clapping games, a debate over the best national dish, and a marriage proposal.
Lisičkinaitė and Shugaleev use athletic acrobatics to force their way past a metallic barrier, slowly undress beneath a white flag, seduce each other, hurt each other. At times, the duo erupts into a euphoric waacking party; then the movement transforms into the brutal rhythm of self-flagellation, skin reddening under repeated blows. Because clapping and slapping are ultimately the same gesture, only the intention changes.
By following the performers’ instructions and clapping along we, the spectators, become active participants. How much free will and individual responsibility do we truly hold within collective systems where violence first appears harmless? After all, between clap and slap, there is only one letter.
Their skin gets redder and redder. Lithuanian Agnietė Lisičkinaitė and Belarusian Igor Shugaleev, in an act of self-flagellation, have been hitting themselves repeatedly, arms striking the back of their necks in rhythmic precision.
CLAP & SLAP is filled with tightly scored steps and razor-sharp movements, yet it punches the comfort out of our western European conscience, as we slowly realise that this dance was made by two eastern European artists who have risked so much.
At the heart of this show – created by Lisičkinaitė (arrested at anti-war protests in Vilnius in 2022) and Shugaleev (who may face imprisonment if forced to return to Belarus in 2028) – is the question of complicity. When we are coaxed into clapping as the pair start to slap each other, it could become uncomfortable. But the claps soon fade – we are let off the hook. This game of applauding pain stops short of forcing us to truly choose not to participate.
Translating the theme of political conflict into a physical experience of tension, pain and helplessness, CLAP & SLAP draws on the personal experiences of Agnietė Lisičkinaitė and Igor Shugaleev. Hailing from Lithuania and Belarus respectively, they treat documentary not as a fixed genre, but as a principle of staging.
The piece establishes a dissonance between words and action — a contradiction that runs through the entire performance. In the opening video, the artists discuss national dishes while eating a hamburger and drinking Coca-Cola. Moments such as this reveal how beliefs, narratives, and even positions within a conflict can become so internalised and assumed, they are no longer questioned or consciously chosen.
While Lisičkinaitė and Shugaleev appear equal in terms of hierarchy, spoken discourse gradually introduces a moral asymmetry. Shugaleev becomes the subject of accusations concerning action and inaction. In doing so, the work exposes how easily complex political realities are reduced to individual responsibility, moral judgment, and rigid ideological positions.
We all have principles we’re unwilling to forgo. But how fixed they are often depends on circumstance. For Lithuanian Agnietė Lisičkinaitė, they’re unshakeable in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Confronted by potential death, Belarusian Igor Shugaleev felt his shift and fled.
Now they face each other on stage, carrying a barricade and their individual burdens. Via video footage, they chat effortlessly about favourite national dishes; then tensions arise when the subject moves to political regimes and the choices we’re forced to make.
Lisičkinaitė’s rigid thinking runs contrary to Shugaleev’s quest to survive. Yet in person, they’re on the same page. The ‘slap’ of the title is visceral for both, with self-flagellating smacks creating an angry bloom of red on their shoulders. It’s increasingly hard to watch, made worse by their constant appeal for applause. Is clapping an act or approval or resistance? Do we sleepwalk into complicity or is collective responsibility the result of deliberate harm?
We’re left with more questions than answers. Which is exactly how it should be.
Are you a good or bad boy? In CLAP & SLAP, Agnietė Lisičkinaitė & Igor Shugaleev dirty the waters between penance, performance and politics. A lighthearted debate over the provenance of Lithuanian and Belarussian dishes spirals into a reckoning on one’s role in collective complicity – in this case, the conditions leading to Belarus’ president-dictator Lukashenko’s rise to power and the Ukrainian war.
CLAP & SLAP’s choreography is deceptively simple, exhausting where and how quickly a flat palm meets flesh. It is incredibly powerful. When Lisičkinaitė’s and Shugaleev self-flagellate, crimson welts bloom on their bodies. We are goaded into clapping on tempo, inadvertently applauding the performers for striking each other’s faces. Then, the frame shifts. Daddy Yankee’s bawdy ‘Gasolina’ plays, recasting punishment as fetish.
The piece is deeply moving. A creeping awareness of this reviewer’s privilege – to receive CLAP & SLAP as a dance work, insulated from the stakes shaping it – lingers long after the performance ends. Lisičkinaitė and Shugaleev slyly expose a different kind of kink: the desire to feel involved without being held accountable. Are we engaging politically, or watching someone do it for us? CLAP & SLAP is masterful.