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SWS21 2021

Nida School Chronicle

Nida School Cronicle
Nida, Lithuania
180 minutes
free
Lithuanian

The plot of this soundwalk opera is based on real text written in Nida (Lithuania) by german speaking school teachers between 1922 an 1945. It reflects on the real historical events that were happening around the small town of Nida situated in the Curonian Spit. The location – is a small piece of land surrounded by clear and salted waters, consisting of sand and pine trees, both constantly stormed by insistent Baltic Sea winds. During the opera you notice how the text transforms from dry historical and chronological facts to deeply personal experiences. The story is told by two imaginary characters (female and male) that consist solely on the entries written into the chronicle. Eventually the listener realises that this is a quasi-epistolary novel, a quasi-love story. The key sentence of the piece is a quote from the separate letter that was found in among the pages of the chronicle book –  “We haven’t each other for a long time”. This sparked an idea for the opera’s playwright Kristė Savickienė to edit the original texts of the chronicle to the correspondence of two imaginary characters. As opera’s composer and Idea author Jonas Jurkūnas states, the audio material resembles various pieces of time metaphors, structurally morphing from traditional acoustic sound towards abstract electronic experience and backwards.

The opera may be experienced in Nida via Echoes, and is also available via SoundCloud.

In 2021 autumn opera was shown in a theatrical version/acousmatic experience in Klaipėda drama theatre.

Location 20 exerpt - song of the soldier

Copyright: Jonas

Speak what have you behold. Location 01. Death Valley by Nida Dunes.

CC-BY-NC: Jonas

Today I Say Goodbye. Priest's Kiepke Farewell Speech. Location 12 - Nida church. Excerpt.

CC-BY-NC: Jonas

Credits

Hosted by: Nida Culture and Tourism Information Center Agila

APA style reference

Jurkunas, J. (2021). Nida School Chronicle. walk · listen · create. https://walklistencreate.org/walkingpiece/nida-school-chronicle/

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snaffle, snoodle

These fanciful-sounding words have no definitive origin: They probably just sounded right to someone who was sauntering, which is what they both mean. An Oxford English Dictionary (OED) example from 1821 describes someone “soodling up and down the street.” Credits to Mark Peters.

Added by Geert Vermeire

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