International ASSITEJ Lithuania festival JĖGA! is coming!

The six-day international ASSITEJ Lithuania festival JĖGA! will bring more than 30 different performing arts productions for children and youth to the theater stages of Panevėžys city and district cultural centers. Since the first festival which was held in 2003, it has been held every three years, and since 2021 – every two years. This year, the festival will be held for the eighth time and will offer a wide artistic program, including performances of various forms and genres, as well as educational events for children, educators and performing arts professionals.

On May 13-18, the capital of Aukštaitija will be visited by theaters from all over Lithuania, as well as foreign guests from Ukraine, Estonia, Poland, Norway, Italy and Mexico. The festival will be hosted by all the city’s theatres: Juozas Miltinis Drama Theatre, Panevėžys Theatre “Menas”, Panevėžys Puppet Theatre and Panevėžys Musical Theatre, as well as Panevėžys Region Cultural Centres in Velžys, Liūdynė, Paįstrys, Naujamiestis, Krekenava, Ramygala, Miežiškiai.

The festival programme is rich in a variety of genres and forms. Drama, dance, puppet and object theatre performances, as well as contemporary and traditional circus and performance-installation will be presented. The programme includes performances not only for a variety of audience tastes, but also for a wide range of audience ages from 6 months to 18 years. The Theatre for Children and Youth hosts performances for babies, preschoolers, school-age children and teenagers, as well as performances for families.

Children and youth will be able to experience as many as 12 performances of the festival using the “Cultural Passport”, so school-age children, together with their classmates, will have the opportunity to see the work of Klaipėda, Kaunas, Alytus and Vilnius theaters on the stages of Panevėžys city and region.

On the occasion of the opening of the festival, on May 13 at 6 PM, the Panevėžys Musical Theater will invite you to a festive concert. And the last chord in the festival program on the 18th at 4 PM will be played by the Keistuolių Theater with the performance “The Road of Yellow Bricks”, which has been running for more than thirty years, which will be located on the main stage of the Juozas Miltinis Drama Theater. During the festival, the annual ASSITEJ Lithuania Prize will be awarded to deserving Lithuanian performing arts professionals who create for children and youth.

During the festival, a meeting of the Nordic-Baltic network, to which ASSITEJ Lithuania also belongs, will also take place. Representatives from the national ASSITEJ centers of Estonia, Latvia, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway and Iceland will discuss topical issues of the development of performing arts for children and youth, related to the topics of diversity and inclusion, and increasing the visibility of the region in the international context.

The festival is financed by the Lithuanian Council for Culture, Panevėžys City Municipality, the Polish Institute in Vilnius, MEP Rasa Juknevičienė. Sponsors: Molas Shopping Center.