MYM.EE presents
Elajannad⏐Beastesses
Nominated at the 2024 Estonian Theatre Awards for Musical Design and Original Music in spoken word performance
Watch the trailer here:
Beastesses (Elajannad) -
a passion for two Women
and a five-piece ensemble.
Beastesses is one Woman's CV,
Curriculum Vitae - the trajectory of a life that begins with birth and ends with death, or maybe the other way round.
This woman's trail could be a leafy woodland lane, a kitchen full of broken glass, a bedroom dripping with tenderness, a well-intentioned road to hell, a perpetual handicraft lesson, a funeral march, or perhaps a 4-lane stadium circuit where she races herself.
Performed by actresses from the internationally famous NO99 theatre – Mirtel Pohla and Eva Koldits – the production interweaves several possible life stories of one woman. For as long as the foremothers reach across the border between life and death, for as long as the narrative lasts, so too does life.
Like a chorus in a Greek tragedy, the woman is accompanied on her journey through hell and paradise on earth by a low-sounding ensemble of top Estonian musicians.
Premiere: 5 February 2023 at Vaba Lava Tallinn Theatre Centre
Concept by Eva Koldits and Mingo Rajandi
Directed by Eva Koldits
Cast: Eva Koldits, Mirtel Pohla
Composer, ensemble leader and musical director: Mingo Rajandi
Dramaturg: Berit Kaschan
Designer: Kairi Mändla
Lighting designer: Meelis Lusmägi
Sound director: Karl-Elijas Teder
Technical production manager: Marti Tärn
Project manager: Merylin Poks
Photos by Rene Jakobson
Musical ensemble: Mingo Rajandi (double bass), Erki Pärnoja (guitars, electronics), Tobias Tammearu (saxophone, electronics), Andres Kaljuste (viola), Ahto Abner (percussion, electronics).
She boldly seeks common ground between refined compositions and improvisation, crossing genre boundaries and experimenting with different art forms. In her works Mingo blends jazz with contemporary music and draws inspiration from socially critical texts and poetry, from both the classics as well as contemporary authors.
Mingo Rajandi
Composer, musician, feminist
Mingo has been commissioned to create several works by jazz and classical music festivals, often collaborating with performing arts producers and performers. Her interdisciplinary pieces such as "Creating Gods" (2018, commissioned by Arvo Pärt Day's) and collaborations like "Lingua franca" (2017) and "The strange mirror" (2021) are remarkable examples of this. Among her notable works is the bassoon concerto "Trees Talk" for the Grammy-nominated bassoon player Martin Kuuskmann (2019), a new rendition of Händel's oratorio "Messiah" for Veronika Portsmouth's Choir (2019), and “Erkki-Sven Tüür & Lepo Sumera Rewrite" with Kirke Karja (2019) that was commissioned for the opening of the Jazzkaar festival's 30th anniversary. In 2019, Mingo participated in the Estonian Drama Theater's production "Double bass", for which she received the award for best original music and musical design at the Estonian Theater Awards. In 2020, Mingo was awarded the title of Jazz Composer of the Year.
Mingo's ensembles, including Ajavares, Heliotroop, Verbarium, Avarus Ensemble, Trio Maag, and Mingo Rajandi Quintet, have performed her works extensively, with numerous albums and singles released. Mingo regularly collaborates with musicians from different genres, actors, visual artists, poets, and choreographers. She has also written for several classical ensembles and soloists and has done a number of special projects both in the theater and on concert stages.
Eva Koldits has worked in various theaters including Tallinn City Theater, Vanemuine, Ugala and notably was a member of the acclaimed Theater NO99 troupe from 2010 to 2018.
As an Estonian theatre director and actress, she has earned multiple nominations for the Estonian Theater Awards. Koldits has participated in several festivals including Festival d`Avignon, Tampere Theatre Festival, Biennale Teatro in Venice. She has performed on various European stages such as Théâtre de l'Odéon, Münchner Kammerspiele, KVS, Nanterre-Amandiers, Teatro Argentina in Rome, Finnish National Theatre and has collaborated with the best Estonian directors like Tiit Ojasoo, Ene-Liis Semper, Juhan Ulfsak, Lauri Lagle, Anne Türnpu, Elmo Nüganen and well-known Finnish director Kristian Smeds among others.
In her role as a director, she frequently delves into folklore, themes of forward interruptions and mythological archetypes, as can be seen in productions like “In a Cone House: Khanty women’s songs”, “Izhorian Epic”, “Sugrierror.com”, "Stories of the Plague Age”.
Beyond the stage, Koldits has acted in several movies and TV series including "Comrade child", "Take it or leave it”, “Traitor".
Koldits has collaborated with Mirtel Pohla since the theater academy, then in theater No99 and in other projects. Together, they have explored poetic improvisational materials in works like "Every True Heartbeat" and "Raise and Fall of Estonia", as well as delved into Greek tragedies such as Euripides' "Iphigeneia in Aulis".
Eva Koldits
Estonian theater director and actress
About the production
Eva Koldits and Mingo Rajandi found the initial inspiration for the creation of "Beastesses" in intimate conversations between themselves, reflecting on their own life experiences and those of their mothers.
Initially, they were fascinated by the idea of basing their production on the heroines of Greek tragedies, but as they delved deeper, they discovered that their mothers' lives were perhaps even more tragic than those of the ancient heroines. The same dilemmas reoccur throughout the centuries, with women still faced with the question of whether to sacrifice themselves for society or society for themselves.
“We get to explore the hopeful promises and visceral disappointments: childbirth and maternity, love and domestic violence, death and murder. The performance also hones in on the complex mother-daughter dynamics, its mutual guilt and self-accusations.
The performance re-centers our attention, to make us think of how many authentic scenes of childbirth we can bring up from cultural memory and the many silences that surround women an aging or women and violence.
Two women, Mirtel Pohla and Eva Koldits, speak. The third, Mingo Rajandi, plays the double bass. Behind them stands a male band. The music and the text, composed from extracts from Estonian and international fiction and non-fiction, both by men and women, form a unitary whole. The performance is immersive, in a minimalist fashion: no props, no extravagant costume, just music and voice.” – Raili Marling
(...) emotionally one of the most powerful productions of womanhood I've seen.
- Maris Johannes, Teater. Muusika. Kino.
(...) the viewer gets to embark on a journey of experience and (self-)observation.
- Marie Pullerits, Teater. Muusika. Kino.
There was a primal expressiveness, a sharpness, a devastation and a heaviness that managed to find playfulness and freedom in itself.
- Tuuli Põhjakas, Postimees
Listen to the soundtrack here:
Contacts:
Production’s Agent Greeta Võsu
greetav6su@gmail.com
+372 5347 7029