How Things End
Jānis Balodis, Nahuel Cano (Latvia, Netherlands, and Argentina)Three years ago, Jānis Balodis and Nahuel Cano began a process they titled How Things End.
Three years – and several endings – later, they sit on a chair in the middle of Ķemeri National Park, watching a river disappear into the forest.
Around them are a few more chairs, a few songs, a few notes, and a small black box whose contents echo, and echo again, endings and transitions.
This work unfolds as a soft dramaturgy: an invitation to follow a search for meaning within a perhaps meaningless quest – to understand the end of things. The end of dreams, the end of a time, the end of love, and the end of all ends: death.
For years, the artists have tried to face the collapse of things, holding on to small gestures of care and everyday attention. The search has led through dead ends and failures, but also – unexpectedly – to worlds within worlds, to life growing out of debris and decay.
EASY READ VERSION
Nahuel Cano and Janis Balodis sit on a chair in the middle of Ķemeri National Park.
They watch a river disappear into the forest.
Around them are a few more chairs
There are songs.
There are also boxes filled with things that hold endings, call them up, or bring them back again.
Today, we invite you to spend time with us in Ķemeri National Park.
We will sit together in nature.
We will look at photographs and objects.
We will listen to music.
We will pay attention to the landscape around us.
Together, we will think about friendship.
We will think about life.
We will think about death.
We will also think about nature and how it is changing.
There is no right or wrong way to take part.
You do not need to understand everything.
You are invited to listen, look, and reflect.
This work is about endings.
For example, the end of a friendship.
The end of a dream.
The end of a place.
The end of life.
It is also about what can begin after something ends.
In nature, new life can grow after loss.
We invite you to spend this time with us.
ABOUT ARTISTS
Jānis Balodis and Nahuel Cano work together in an informal, long-term collaboration that moves between theatre, music, poetry, and performance. While maintaining independent artistic practices, they come together to develop specific projects through what they describe as a slow cooking of questions and performative strategies. They began working together during their studies at the DAS Theatre Master program in Amsterdam in 2018, and since then their collaboration has unfolded through different iterations, formats, and research phases. Their most notable shared work is The Last Night of the Deer.
Nahuel Cano (born 1982 in Neuquén, Argentina) is a performer, theatre-maker, and composer working across performance, music, and sound. His practice is grounded in listening as an artistic and political tool, and explores how ecological histories, place, and affect can be translated into musical and performative forms.
Jānis Balodis (born 1987 in Riga, Latvia) is a playwright, dramaturg, and performance maker whose work interrogates social and political realities, creates theatrical situations with communities, and blends documentary and poetic approaches. He has contributed to numerous productions across the Baltic region and beyond.
credits
Makers – performers: Jānis Balodis and Nahuel Cano
Space design and location advice: Kate Krolle
Dramaturgical advice and inspiration: Teodēzija Balode
Production: Ieva Briede (New Theatre Institute of Latvia)
The performance was created as part of the EU Creative Europe programme project The Big Green. With financial support from the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia. The work is being carried out in cooperation with the Pierīga Regional Administration of the Nature Conservation Agency. Special acknowledgment to Agnese Balandiņa. The New Theatre Institute of Latvia is responsible for the content of the performance.
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Notes
If you are planning to travel with your own vehicle, please arrive 15 minutes before the performance begins.
If you are travelling by train, you should leave Riga Central Station at 9.30 am (for the 11.15 a.m. performance), 11.30 a.m. (for the 13.15 performance) and 13.30 (for the 15.15 performance).