A New Season Opens at ĢIT

Even as summer isn't quite over yet, a new season has kicked off at the Ģertrūdes Street Theatre (ĢIT). We launched it during the Riga City Festival in Grīziņkalns with Andrejs Jarovojs's performance "this is all we can do," which explores solidarity and inclusive humanity – asking how we can stay connected at a time when the bonds holding the world together feel more fragile than ever. This performance also marked the 20th anniversary of the TARBA association, which founded the Ģertrūdes Street Theatre back in 2009. Since then, it has grown into one of Latvia's leading platforms for independent performing arts.

The theatre has no resident company; instead, it works as a producing house, bringing together artists from different generations and disciplines and helping drive forward contemporary performing arts and international collaboration.

In recognition of their long-term contribution to contemporary performing arts in Latvia and to strengthening international ties, TARBA and the Ģertrūdes Street Theatre – along with representatives Maija Pavlova and Andrejs Jorovojs – received Certificates of Recognition from the Ministry of Culture.

This season, ĢIT will once again be a home for new stage works and creative experimentation, while helping Latvian artists reach international audiences and continuing to tour across Latvia.

The season's first premiere lands on September 23: Sandija Dovgāne's visual theatre piece "inhale: exhale." Late October brings the premiere of Vladimirs Goršantovs's contemporary dance solo "BOY-OY."

Premieres and a Sneak Peek Behind the Scenes

Before that first premiere, audiences get a chance to see work-in-progress: on September 6 and 9, as part of the Homo Novus International Festival of Contemporary Theatre Jana Jacuka opens up a rehearsal of her upcoming piece "AAA" (working title). In it, she continues exploring voice as a choreographic tool – the voice as an extension of the body, breath as a channel to the audience.

As the doors close and we become contained within one space – sharing the same circulation of air, breath, and information, using voice becomes a way of filling the room with exhaled air. AAA (working title) departs from the vocal practice of yodeling, a “disobedient” vocal technique that resists the attempt to stabilize the voice and instead embraces instability. Through extreme vocal practices and unpredictable yodel flips, she oscillates between control and loss of control in both voice and body, inviting into an experience that is physically felt as much as it is heard.

On September 23, ĢIT premieres Sandija Dovgāne's "inhale: exhale," built around something as basic as it is essential to life: breathing. Breath becomes event, sound, and movement – tracing the fragile line between what's alive and what only imitates being alive. At a moment when life keeps getting measured by productivity and constant motion, the piece treats breathing as undeniable proof of life, and as an act of resistance – something that simply can't be fully copied or controlled.

Late October brings Vladimirs Goršantovs's "Boy Oy," which looks at how people relate to instability, loss, and change through the lens of entropy and disorder – filtered through the author's own family history and memory. The question at its core: do we create the chaos, or are we just what's left after it?

ĢIT Performances Keep Touring Abroad

International touring continues this season too. On August 28–29, Jana Jacuka's choreographic work "HA" plays at the MLADI LEVI festival in Ljubljana, followed by two dates (October 7 and 10) at the ACTORAL festival in Marseille.

In September, Andrejs Jarovojs's "The Wood Paths" heads to Slovenia for the International Biennial of Contemporary Puppet Art, LUTKE, in Ljubljana (September 25–26). The chamber opera "Monstera Deliciosa," by Barbara Lehtna, Linda Krūmiņa, and Līva Blūma, plays the Kutn? Hora festival in Czechia on September 17.

International partnerships remain a core part of what ĢIT does, building long-term relationships and putting Latvia's independent theatre scene more firmly on the international map.

Meeting Audiences Across Latvia

Reaching audiences outside Riga matters just as much. Coming up very soon – September 11 – Andrejs Jarovojs's "The Witch" plays in Tukums. It'll be the last chance to catch it: the show closes for good after this performance.

This school year, ĢIT again invites schools to take part in the "Latvijas skolas soma" cultural education program, bringing students to see performances chosen from ĢIT's school-friendly repertoire. We want theatre to be a place where young people can encounter contemporary performance, ask questions, and keep talking about what they've seen.

Theatre as a Space for Conversation

There's more information around us than ever, but somehow less real conversation. For us, theatre is a place to think, to doubt, to ask questions, to meet people different from – and like – ourselves, and to step back and look at the world from another angle. We believe culture isn't separate from society; it lives in our willingness to stay curious, ask questions, listen to each other, and not turn away from what's complicated.

Glad to be back! See you at ĢIT!

Recap on the 17th season of Theatre on Gertrude Street

Premiere of the new contemporary chamber opera “Cantus Firmus” at GIT

Following the success of their first triptych chamber opera “Monstera Deliciosa” (2023) —https://git.lv/lv/shows/view/218 — which explored themes of ecology, the climate crisis, and women’s stories, and was nominated for two “Spēlmaņu nakts” awards (Best Small-Form Production and Best New Musical Work of the Year), the authors Līva Blūma, Linda Krūmiņa, and Barbara Lehtna continue to unravel essential questions in their second chamber opera “Cantus Firmus”. The premiere will take place very soon — on October 22 at 19:00 at GIT. 

“Cantus Firmus” brings four women together on stage as they seek ways to protect a local Latvian bog endangered by a female oligarch’s plans to develop a spa in the middle of it. Within a richly layered musical composition, their concerns intertwine with questions about how much agency an individual can - and should - take when faced with what they perceive as a threat to the common good of others. 

In music, cantus firmus is a melody that historically served as the foundation for polyphonic church music. Such music was almost always performed by men, as women’s voices were largely excluded from public church music at the time. However, behind the walls of convents, women—free from forced marriages and the burdens of noble duty—composed and performed complex polyphonic works. Drawing upon sacred texts and Gregorian chants, they created music that became a form of expressing freedom. The performance “Cantus Firmus” leads into a mysterious space where women, through singing, seek answers to essential questions and illuminate their branching realities.

Upcoming performances and tickets:
22/10/25 https://git.lv/lv/events/view/1266 (Premiere!)
23/10/25 https://git.lv/lv/events/view-public/1267
25/10/25 https://git.lv/lv/events/view-public/1268
19/11/25 https://git.lv/lv/events/view-public/1270
21/11/25 https://git.lv/lv/events/view-public/1271
10/12/25 https://git.lv/lv/events/view-public/1283
12/12/25 https://git.lv/lv/events/view-public/1284

Creative team:
Composer: Līva Blūma
Directed and libretto by: Barbara Lehtna (EE), Linda Krūmiņa
Latvian translation of the libretto: Anna Auziņa
Singers: Līga Paegle, Gita Rebeka Adlere, Shino Yamasaki
Instrumentalist: Elīza Apine
Music and sound director: Lilita Dunska
Set and costume designer: Ieva Kauliņa
Visual identity: Signija Joce
Light designer: Līva Kalniņa
Produced by: Ģertrūdes ielas teātris
Duration: 1h 15 min
The performance is sung in Latvian with English subtitles.

JANA JACUKA’S PERFORMANCE “HA” PREMIERED ON AUGUST 28.

“A friend of a friend put a hand around me, ha, I’m feeling insecure but I just went hahahaha.”

In everyday situations, our boundaries are often crossed, leaving us unsure of how to respond. HA explores the performativity of laughter as an escaping mechanism. By stripping away theatrical distractions, Jana Jacuka’s solo work emphasizes the raw and essential elements of performance, inviting the audience to engage with the visceral experience of extreme vocal practices. HA is an investigation of the voice as a choreographic tool. In HA the voice becomes an extension of the body. She grunts, fry-screams, speaks while inhaling and shifts into communication beyond words.

She will come empty handed.
It’s just the space,
her and you,
and suddenly
HA

The choreographer and performer of the production is Jana Jacuka, while dramaturgical support was provided by Eva Susova and Toni Steffens. The dramaturgs are interdisciplinary artists working at the intersection of visual arts and choreography. Eva Susova’s practice encompasses performance, sound, sculpture, and writing, with a particular focus on embodied knowledge, whereas Toni Steffens’ artistic work is grounded in bodily sensitivity, imagination, and emotional empathy as intelligent bodily technologies that help to reconfigure relationships with reality.

The mentor of the production is Miguel Melgares, the consultant is Bruno Listopad, and the text consultant is Joachim Robbrecht, with text editing in collaboration with Nikolas Lange. Vocal coaches are Moa Holgersson, Monica Janssen and Maria Magdalena Kozłowska. The graphic designer is Estere Betija Grāvere, and the photographer is Pēteris Vīksna.

Traces left by Stina Force and Amparo Gonzales.
Language: performed in English with Latvian translation.

This work wouldn’t be possible without Sam Scheuermann, Veronika Abdul-Visocka, DAS theater tutor and peer support.

Performance was developed within the context of the DAS Theatre master programme and with financial support from the ATD-Aart Janszen Fund (NL) and State Culture Capital Foundation (LV).

Jana Jacuka (b. 1995) is a choreographer and performer from Latvia. She recently completed the MA programme at DAS Theatre in Amsterdam. Her artistic practice revolves around creating performances from almost nothing, using the body, voice, and text as primary materials. Over the past two years, she has been exploring the voice—particularly the letters H and A—as catalysts for sound. While studying extreme and experimental vocal techniques, she has focused on how the voice can become an extension of the body: how it can be choreographed and how the sounds of it can move an audience.

Jana has collaborated with artists such as Marina Abramović, Damien Rais, Dries Verhoeven, Arno Schuitemaker, among others. Her work has been presented at venues and festivals including Frascati (NL), DansBrabant (NL), AUAwirleben Festival (SWE), Kanuti Gildi Saal and SAAL Biennaal (EE), and the Homo Novus Festival (LV). Her piece The Distance Between Us was named “Performance of the Year 2022/2023” at the Latvian Dance Awards.

Upcoming performances:
September 2 at 7:00 PM
September 4 at 7:00 PM
September 6 at 7:00 PM

Tickets and gift cards: https://git.lv/lv/events/program