MATCH is a duet performance that takes relation as sport and emotion as score. In this competition, the rules are always changing. Adapt or perish. Produce or perish. Close up: two females appear to be enterprises. We practice pure intensity and artificial fury, gathering efficiency as we approach the starting line. We run circuits over the field of performance anxiety and heightened productivity. There’s no choice but to self-brand.
MATCH is head-to-head, hand-to-hand, toe-to-toe, eye-to-eye. Our goal is to externalize aggression, but we find a deluge of affects contained inside. Are these emotions sincere or synthetic, compulsion or manipulation? Are you laughing at us or are we laughing at you? We are so charming until we bare our teeth.
We merge, we mirror, we will go the distance. Do we choose solidarity or individualism? This is not a duet. We can never be truly equal, because you have to make a choice. Our competition is your problem. We are your problem now. The challengers are ready. On your mark, get set…
Emily Gastineau & Vilma Pitrinaite, Vienna, August 2016
@ Zoltan Molnar 
@Aiste Pilkauskaite 
@ Zoltan Molnar
Concept, choreography and performance: Vilma Pitrinaite & Emily Gastineau
Coproduction: Lithuanian Council for Culture. Support: Fillimit Platform/KoresponDance Festival (Zdar nad Sazavou, CzechRepublic), ATLAS Program/Impulstanz (Vienna), Fresh Oysters Performance Research (Minneapolis, MN, US), SE.S.TA Coaching, Residency (Prague), WorkspaceBrussels, Garage29.
Full show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF38oafxICM&list=UUNj-39w2h1uRjrt4wnfEplQ&index=7
Press review 2019 06 04 | Deimantė Dementavičiūtė-Stankuvienė
Two charismatic choreographers and dancers invited us to Kaunas Gallery Post for an extraordinary meeting – dance performance « Match ». “She’s so positive. She is actually super-competent. She always stays true to herself ( …) She was making such big gestures, so frankly, she acted like a dancer … ”. It is an extract from a fragmentary text transmission when two performers appear on the dance floor. Or more accuretely current and future super-leaders. Themselves and the caracters that they create.They talk openly and ironically about things we do not want or do not dare to talk about. About how, every moment, every hour, every day we strive to be the best, the most energetic, the most succesful and the most connected.
Performers tear off social masks, discovering some kind of a rival being living in the depths of all of us. An insatiable, persistent pet always in need of attention and games. Performance aesthetics allow the spectators to share personal experiences of both performers – in their daily lives of performers and personalities. Both equally professional, recognized, both burned out, not being able to say no. Both can do anything, both are talented and hard working in the same way. Or maybe not in the same way? Their duel combines movement and language. They dance, speak-up, demonstrate their bodies, their physical endurance and intellect just as one would do in sports. They adapt to what comes, always in balance between loosing or winning. If their performance were to be seen as a dance performance, it would fall out like sand between our fingers. There is no specific category here. No “truth” can be justified. Everything is real and can be turned upside down. The performers’ openness is like snow falling on a summer day. It unfolds in ways that you don’t
expect at all. They discover a way of communicating with a spectator that gourmetly “nourishes” not only his mind but also his subconscious. Discovering tools that indirectly irritate his body senses as well. With the help of new technology, dancers expose their body parts in close-up. Divided into two equal sides, the screen allows you to monitor their physical and creative advantages. In a figurative and literal sense. They are not afraid to nude not only their opinions, their worldview, but also their most intimate parts of the body. Balancing from personal to universal. From time to time, their show gives the impression of being on youtube and watching a variety of “home” videos where people showcase their talents. Real and supposed ones. Today, bookshelves and homes are full of books on popular psychology that advise you how to become a leader, influence others, and work the most effectively and without burnout, how to create a positive opinion of yourself and how to improve your inner self until you have the best version of yourself. This performance captures not only this aspect of reality but also offers a variety of perspectives on what it means to be the best. Perhaps the most stupid and primitive? Or
maybe those who are really super-competent do not need to prove it, compare themselves and compete? Will we not become exactly the same, if we all use the same patterns of behavior and thinking? Won’t we suddenly lose sight of our uniqueness? Everyday, our attention is drawn to articles on how, in accordance with ten fundamental principles, one can easily and quickly become a perfect woman or a perfect man. The words most often used in them are probably ‘successful’ and ‘toxic’. You remember these adjectives very well, watching these women perform. And the struggle seems to happen not only between them but also between
these words. The dancers’ hands and feet are intertwined, interlaced and then separate again, their movements become states. Natural and artificial, forcing identification and alienation. « Match » infects, infuriates, repels, irritates, attrackts and makes us laugh. Absolutely professional and persuasive in each case. You cannot look away from the different bodies of performers and their innerselves full of sense and originality. For a moment you try to roll your eyes, unconsciously,
just like that. But they suddenly rise, as if they were attracted by an invisible magnet to something that the dancers open – something that exists here and now. Something which is attractive and disgusting, intimate and unusual, sincere and fake, structured and liberated.