International Children and Youth Festival KITOKS’25

At the beginning of 2025 for the fourteenth time, the Arts Printing House – ASSITEJ Lithuania member – will invite you to the international children and youth festival KITOKS! This time, the festival, presenting non-traditional contemporary performing arts to a young audience, will feature works by German, Finnish, Catalan, Italian, Spanish, Belgian, French and Lithuanian creators!

“As the festival program organiser, I would like to describe the upcoming KITOKS festival as a space for encounters, listening and creating dialogue. For over a decade, this festival has been a meeting place for performing arts creators and young audiences. A place where artists from different cultures and young spectators of all ages meet. In January, we will once again invite the public to experiential installations and performances created with different artistic means and characterised by their unique aesthetics. In the upcoming festival, we will continue to present contemporary circus shows. The international program includes two performances of this genre: the little ones will witness a cosy, magical and unforgettable experience in the performance Colorsphere by artists from Finland. For a little older audience – the pop-punk performance Rollercoaster by American creator Wes Peden, currently residing in France”, says Jolita Balandytė, the director of the Arts Printing House and organiser of the KITOKS festival program.

PROGRAM:

SHADES OF SHADOWS | TANGRAM Kollektiv (DE)

January 11, 10:00 and 14:00

Arts Printing House, Pocket Hall

Age: 5-8 years

Duration: 35 min

Laws of Physics don’t apply here, expectations are crossed. Shadows entering through the backdoor and stealing our stuff. Everyday-object shadows are running wild for their own little dance of freedom. They are getting bigger and smaller, they split and they merge. Shadows become whatever they imagine to be. Shadows become bodies, bodies become shadows, and then, for a second, being alone feels much less lonely. It is an ode to the power of imagination!

COLORSPHERE | Hands some Feet (FIN)

January 11, 12:00 and 15:00

Arts Printing House, Black Hall

Age: 3-6 years

Duration: 45 min

Colorsphere is a captivating contemporary circus performance that is perfect for both children and adults. This show blends juggling, acrobatics, physical theatre, and an unexpected use of technology to create an unforgettable experience. This circus adventure is a story about exploration, change, and adapting to new environments. Join the explorers on their expedition into a new reality, where they must learn to adjust to unexpected circumstances. Colorsphere takes spectators on an exciting journey towards completely new dimensions, promising a magical and memorable experience for everyone.

NO MOON | Samfaina De Colors (CAT)

January 12, 10:00 and 14:00

Arts Printing House, Black Hall

Age: 3-6 years

Duration: 40 min

A show without text, where music is the language to communicate the feelings and emotions that guide us on this evocative journey. Visual delicacy and live music. An ideal opportunity to delve into the beauty and magic of the night. We claim that moonless moments are as beautiful and necessary. Darkness symbolises introspection, reflection and peace. What emotions invade us when we are in this fragile moment of the No moon?

GAJA MARA | Kaunas City Chamber Theatre (LT)

January 12, 12:00 and 15:00

Arts Printing House, Pocket Hall

Age: up to 3 years old

Duration: 30 min + 15 min

An interactive musical movement performance that tells the story of the time of light (Gaja) and darkness (Mara), using folkloric holiday songs, games and rituals from ancient Baltic traditions. The main artistic idea of the performance Gaja-Mara is based on the worldview of the ancient Baltics, the concept of nature cycles, the connection between light and darkness, the ritualism of time and primordial sensations that help the unborn children, babies and those who are only starting to walk, to get to know the world. The performance features folk music and games, which use scenography elements created on the principle of tactile toys: their texture, shapes and colours.

ARCHIPELAGO | Teatro Telaio (IT)

January 13, 10:00, 12:00, 18:00

January 14, 14:00

Arts Printing House, Black Hall

Age: 7-12 years

Duration: 40 min

This is a wise and exciting installation, conceived as a real humane and sentimental education form, where the absolute protagonists are the children, invited to explore in a large space that needs to be discovered. Guardians of worlds from mysterious substance create a real little sea, where you can even hear the waves. Each boy and girl, moved by words of magical depth can immerse themselves in it, respond to the different stimuli and create their own emotional diary which is then shared with others.

INSIDES | El Patio Teatro (ES)

January 13, 18:00

January 14, 10:00

Arts Printing House, Pocket Hall

Age: from 12 years

Duration: 35 min

Where do our bodies go when they disappear? What are we? What are we made of? What is a body? El Patio Teatro exposes itself to the interior of the human body to try to explain, through object theatre and narrative, what it is that we have inside. During an intimate anatomy class, questions arise to unravel some mysteries of the human body. The outcome, a game, brief anatomy lessons – all this together with El Patio Teatro.

FRAMED | hetpaleis (BE)

January 15, 10:00 and 14:00

Arts Printing House, Black Hall

Age: from 14 years

Duration: 55 min

In English.

It seems as though our body has never had such a prominent place in the way we look at ourselves and others. In the lives of young people growing up, this leads to vulnerability and sometimes to downright violent behaviour: racism, fat shaming, sexism and bullying. These are the consequences of a gaze that reduces people to physical characteristics. The performance Framed intends to free that gaze. Eight performers share vulnerable details of the history of their bodies. They show how external characteristics only express a fraction of what a person really is. Their words and movements reveal a search for self-acceptance and pride.

ROLLERCOASTER | Wes Peden (FR)

January 16, 10:00 and 18:00

Arts Printing House, Black Hall

Age: 8-14 years

Duration: 45 min

Ultra-modern pop-punk juggling! Surrounded by a huge inflatable blue structure and accompanied by electro beats composed of distorted rollercoaster sounds, Wes Peden shares his cutting-edge tricks inspired by corkscrews, adrenalin, and high-tech seatbelts. The show features a 4-meter transparent tube making balls spiral around Wes’ body, contemporary spinning plate rituals, epic 3-ball disco juggling, and invisible seatbelts providing the safety to perform some of the most difficult juggling ever done on stage!

GALAKTIKOS (GALACTICS) | Teatro Istorijos & Kaunas City Chamber Theatre (LT)

January 17, 10:00 and 18:00

Arts Printing House, Pocket Hall

Age: 12-16 years

Duration: 1 hour 10 min

The life of teenager Karolis is a subtle dance between passion for the mysteries of space and the challenges of communication. Karolis, who has an autism spectrum disorder, perceives the world as a big cacophony in which every sound, taste, touch and smell is amplified, so things that are familiar to us seem strange to him. The safest place for him is his room – a refuge, which the boy turns into a spaceship that he uses to embark on extraordinary journeys to distant planets when in search of his (neuro)tribe – a community that would truly understand him. By combining the elements of paper and drama theatre, the creative team of Galaktikos (eng. Galactics) takes spectators on an expedition through space, reflecting the inner world of Karolis.

TRIJULĖ AUKŠTYN KOJOM (UPSIDE DOWN TRIO) | Taškas Theatre (LT)

January 17, 12:00

Arts Printing House, Black Hall

Duration: 50 min

Age: 6-9 years

Pirmulė and Dudulė are a duo with their own established order, which they trust unconditionally. However, one day, their life is turned upside down by Trijulė – she doesn’t care about someone else’s order and, even more so, she doesn’t feel obligated to follow it. With her uniqueness, she not only provokes Pirmulė and Dudulė to re-evaluate the order they created but also reveals that in the world, being different is valuable and interesting. After all, the most important thing is not rules but friendship based on mutual trust and respect. The performance tells a story of how a third member who has fallen from the sky and its uniqueness can ruin the order of life that has existed before. However, respect, care and responsibility not only for oneself but also for others help to establish and maintain relationships that nurture each person’s individuality with various people or animals.

SOC NATURA | L’autèntica (CAT)

January 18, 11:00, 12:00 and 15:00

Arts Printing House, Black Hall

Duration: 35 min

Age: For babies 0-24 months

A captivating, original and immersive installation inviting a baby to discover nature as well as a collective experience among other babies and families. What if, for a moment, you could become a part of a breathing forest? What if you could feel the oscillating fall of a leaf? Or even – what if you could blow as the wind, dragging everything on its way? It is an engaging experience for the entire family.

 

 

FREE workshops, meetings and other activities take place at the festival KITOKS’25; more information – menuspaustuve.lt and in the festival program online.

More info: menuspaustuve.lt