Performance conceived and interpreted by Vilma Pitrinaite.
She is young and pretty and has won the title of Miss Lithuania which destins her to participate in the Miss World contest. Everything starts well and it is with a smile, a smile of circumstance, and of command, which must be imperatively attached to the ears, that she submits herself to the eliminatory tests of selection to integrate the grand finale. Because the stakes are high since she is erected in “ambassador of charm” of her country. But everything takes a bad turn, the mechanical doll goes wrong, the program of the Miss is bypassed by globalized patterns, and even her patriotic drive turns into surrealist speech. Through an effective combination of textual utterance and body dramaturgy, Vilma Pitrinaite, a young actress from the TNS School and trained in gymnastics and dance, delivers a shockperformance focused on the real meaning of an international competition in the world revealing the true meaning of the publicized show featuring the “aesthetic-ethno-erotic typologies” of national barbies. Indeed, it opens an essentially political reflection, transposable to other international competitions such as the Olympic Games.
On one hand, in the light of subjects that arouse controversy, attachment to an identity culture and legitimate nationalism even though that these manifestations, according to some, convey the “soft racialism of the New World Order”. On the other hand, in view of the instrumentalization of the masses, and therefore of the people, by means of collective catharsis, which was the prerogative of totalitarian societies, and the democratic cult of post-modern idols. Finally, on the paradoxal standardization of one beauty instead of different beauties, which is not neutral in the light of economic globalization and the lobbying of the cosmetics industry. With this “Miss Lithuania” impetuous, disoriented and unbridled, Vilma Pitrinaite, who does not lack temperament, aims fair and strong.
