“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

Stripping away theatrical elements, Jana Jacuka’s solo distills performance to its essence: the body, the stage, and an open invitation for the viewer to fully surrender to the experience.

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.