Monstera Deliciosa is a creeping vine with huge, serrated leaves that has been a popular decoration in clinics, schools, libraries, apartments and private homes for more than 30 years. Under favourable conditions, the monstera grows rapidly and expands to fill the space around it. Nurturing plants and the well-being of others – the invisible day to day work of care is also carried out by the women around us, filling the empty spaces in the social landscape.

“Monstera Deliciosa” brings together on stage four women from different generations to tell their own stories while singing the stories of other women. In a densely packed soundscape coexist the everyday worries of a public toilet attendant and the environmental concerns of a young ecofeminist, the desire to balance and strengthen the sometimes fragile bonds that unite and hold us together.

The libretto was created by meeting and listening to women living in Latvia and Estonia who take care of plants and people around them in their daily lives, while the original music was created by transforming the genre of chamber opera through the tradition of choral singing that Latvians and Estonians share. Between the black earth and the plastic flowers, the creative team is looking for ways to grow, flourish and be with each other in the world we inhabit.

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CREATIVE TEAM

Barbara Lehtna is an Estonian stage artist. In 2021 she received her MA in Performance Practice from ArtEZ University of Arts in the Netherlands, where she researched ethics, agency and queer issues in the context of participatory performance. In 2021 Barbara was selected as one of the artists of the European network BePart (Art Beyond Participation), and since 2022 she is the artist representing Latvia in the think tank Baltic Current. Barbara is interested in the fusion of genres of performing arts and the possibilities to promote change in society, and has long been researching stories of personal memories and experiences, basing her creative practice on the technique of storytelling. Barbara believes that art should be intimate and always political.

Līva Blūma is a Latvian composer and choir singer. She received her Master's degree in composition from Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA in 2021, her Bachelor's degree in composition from Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music in 2018, and her qualifications as a choir conductor and choir singer from the Riga Dome Choir School in 2014. Līva's creative impulses as a composer are found in poetry, visual arts, medicine and nature, while her vocal works are based on a variety of sources – from 16th century poets to spam emails and advertisements. The resulting sound world is fantastical and strange, yet vital and relentlessly rhythmic.

Linda Krūmiņa is a dance and theatre dramaturg. She holds a Master's degree in Dance from Latvian Academy of Culture, and has regularly updated her knowledge at local and international masterclasses. The fundamental objective of Linda's creative work is to enable encounter and conversation through an artistic event, regardless of genre or medium, and she is interested in creating documentary and socio-politically relevant stage works. Her professional interests include themes with ambiguous points of view that need to be brought to the fore through stimulating discussion and broadening understanding.