Aligned bodies, intertwined lives: the Baltic vortex of ‘IevaKrish’

In the world of contemporary dance and interdisciplinary art, Latvia-based creative duo ‘IevaKrish’ – Ieva Gaurilčikaitė-Sants and Krišjānis Sants – are becoming increasingly prominent. Working both individually and together, the two artists are shaping a distinct aesthetic that merges dance, scenography, sound and the experience of the body, foregrounding rhythm and contemporary interpretations of traditional Baltic polyphonic singing, and inviting audiences not only to observe, but to participate.

The duo has grown into an independent dance organisation, Tuvumi, which now develops international projects. Their creative arsenal is broad and the viewer’s experience is central. Labrys (2020) invited the audience into a performance with limited visibility. This grew into House Of Labrys (2021), a project of solidarity with people with visual impairments. Krišjānis’s collaboration with Swedish artist Erik Eriksson gave rise to Vērpete, a dynamic, spiralling dance experience that was named Best Contemporary Dance Performance at the Latvian Theatre Awards 2016, and revived in 2022 and 2024.

Today, ‘IevaKrish’ is regarded as one of the most compelling experimental stage duos in the Baltics, creating projects rich in intellect and emotion while subtly inscribing personal experience into their artistic language. This becomes especially evident in their newest dance piece, Oblicus, which resembles a contemporary meditation on love.

“This is my and your contemporary love story – our contemporary sutartinė¹,” the performance begins, as spectators gather in Riga’s main cultural venue, Hanzas Perons. Kneeling at a respectful distance, the married couple read excerpts from their letters: one written shortly after their wedding, the other on the day before the Oblicus premiere.

Oblicus is a tender, polyphonic, hypnotic work that fully draws the viewer in, revealing themes of individuality, relationships and love. With subtle, precise, almost calculated movements, together with Jūlija Bondarenko’s lighting and Kārlis Tone’s sound, Ieva and Krišjānis convey an intimate narrative. The audience is invited not to witness a linear story, but an emotional landscape where harmony between bodies and media speaks louder than words.

As the dancers read aloud their love letters, fears emerge, as do vows to protect one another, reflections on difficult workdays and the comfort of each other’s shirts, confessions of affection – feelings that persist even in dreams. When the dialogue ends, the lights go dark. In the silence, one hears bodies shifting on the floor, their breathing, the crackle of joints – the artists allow the audience to adapt to the darkness. As the breath quickens and the rhythmic movements become audible, a red light finally cuts through the void.

The visual world of the performance is built from smoke and red light. Like a third performer, light is not merely decorative – it becomes an emotional leitmotif expressing tension, anger, exhaustion, desire and calm. The layer of smoke, as if muting reality, dissolves the space and transports the viewer into liminal states governed by different rules.

The dancers’ movements at first resemble two separate languages searching for a shared syntax, occasionally recalling the work of William Forsythe or Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. As the music accelerates, so do the dancers – not chaotically, but rhythmically, as if following a precise choreographic equation. It feels as though one is witnessing not only dance, but a kind of drawing – perhaps a parallel between two lives that do not always align yet strive to find a common vector. At times they overlap literally – polyphonic movements synchronise, a unified rhythm emerges, and movement qualities are exchanged.

This theme of synchronised movement is expressed through subtle details – deliberate shifts in hand and body position, counted steps, carefully measured pauses. The dancers reveal not only how two people meet, but how they learn to be together, to maintain individuality while seeking a shared language. At one point, an entirely new movement combination appears, as if a new stage in a relationship has been reached. One cannot shake the impression of witnessing a couple’s journey through emotional states: from falling in love to conflict, from anger to reconciliation, from parting to return.

Interestingly, in the second half of Oblicus, movements seen at the beginning return – now woven together with new ones. As in relationships, one comes back to the same patterns, but with new experience, new emotion. Bodies bear witness to time – to past, present, and perhaps even future.

One scene stands out for its emotional intensity: movements shift from angular and static to gentle and fluid, as if warm feelings and reconciliation had replaced anger and dispute. Despite the shifting moods, the dancers remain close to one another. Such carefully charted emotional choreography convincingly captures the dynamics of a relationship: people may clash and argue, yet love remains the unchanging centre around which everything revolves – like planets around their axis.

The finale could easily have been derailed by a cheap trick involving handheld lights. Had the duo chosen to end the performance with these glowing points (designed by Jānis Bukovskis / ‘Those Guys Lighting’) circling them like fireflies in the night, it would have become little more than a Disney-style happy ending. Instead, the ending takes another path: as the audience follows the moving lights, the dancers undress. Spinning around each other, the lights come close to their bodies but never touch, clothing falls to the floor. A brief moment of astonishment flickers across the viewer’s face, followed by calm as the performers slows down, the music quietens, and the lights rest. Nakedness here holds the warmth of an embrace, a soft melting into one another, meant not for us, but for the duo onstage.

Oblicus is not merely a dance performance, but a map of feelings – one that invites the audience to journey not only with eyes attuned to darkness and ears attentive to sound, but with the heart. Here, dance becomes sacred, almost trance-like. Repeated polyphonic movements, echoing the artists’ love, resemble prayer or ritual. The red light dissipates, the ‘fireflies’ settle on the ground, naked bodies walk off in different directions, and the viewer is left alone – far removed from reality, closer to their own love story. ●

1 A sutartinė is a traditional Lithuanian multipart folk song, sung by two or more performers. It features repetitive patterns, canon-like singing, and a distinctive interweaving sound. Sutartinės were traditionally sung during rituals and community events and are recognized by UNESCO as part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.