I am a performance artist, educator and writer based in Rīga, Latvia. The artistic strategy for my works emerges from the love of process, authenticity, transformation and collective mind. I find these phenomena in both performance art and education.
My performance art practice is a fusion of philosophical ideas, playful interaction with audience and deep interest in creating transformative experiences. I love to play creating rules on the spot and dive into exploration of Big questions. I believe performer is a ¬-messenger from the future who uses his/herself to express the upcoming. Therefore, I connect imagination with (un)questionable reality and direct the outcome to the freedom.
For almost 18 years, I have created and participated in diverse interactive theater pieces (invisible, forum, image theater, “classical” and experimental improv) and performances (short and durational, site specific and previously designed, solo and collective etc.).
I have also studied philosophy and writing, earned daily bread as a freelance creative for various advertising companies, got lost asking myself “Why am I doing this?”, left the advertising industry for good, worked as a Latvian and literature teacher in a small rural school, got the meaning of life back, mentored young art and Latvian language teachers, participated in development of new National education curriculum of Latvia and created processes in which teachers throughout Latvia acquire pedagogical methodology, where the teaching involves “Why am I doing this?” and the active participation of students. Through all the roads and paths, I have remained committed to the process – expression the quality of being.
Photo: Uldis Siliņš
CREATIVE CV
2012-now – independent performer
2019 Bergen, duo performance “Linked”
2019 Riga, solo performance “Comfort Zone II”
2019 Riga, Riga Performance festival. Workshops for drama teachers
2019 Prague, solo performance “Comfort Zone I”
2018 Vernéřovice, solo performance “Transition 10-35”
2018 Riga, Riga Performance festival. Workshops for drama teachers and youth
2018 Prague, duo performance “Too Dark to Be Shy”
2017 Berlin, 1999 till now, solo performance “(Un)ravel”
2017 Tallin, duo performance “Shoes to Choose”
2016, Riga collective live art performance “Dreams at a staircase”
2015, Cēsis workshops and performance in Youth prison “All is normal” (“Viss normāli”)
2015 Riga, forum theatre performance “At the Office”
2013 Rožupe, workshops and performance “The Light”
2011-2012, online game “Text detective”
2006-2012 performer at Interactive Theatre Studio “Laiva”
2012, performance-social experiment “Story market in Middle Ages”
2012, social experiment “8th of May/ 9th of May”
2011, social experiment “Voluntary work”
2010, forum theatre performance “Garden”
2010, international improv and performance art project “Tolerance”
2010, improv show “Hero’s journey”
2009, improv show “Second-hand trade”
2008, improvised movement performance in Riga Railway Station using books nominated for book art competition.
2008, improv show “Coasts of cardboards”
2007, improv show “Texture of waste paper”
2006, improv show “A story about a poet”
Other creative, educational and survival activities
2016-now, senior curriculum developer in National Centre for Education of the Republic of Latvia (implementation of transversal skills “creativity and entrepreneurship” and teachers’ professional development)
2014-2018, coach (supervisor) for art, literature and Latvian language teachers
2012-2014, Latvian and literature teacher at a small rural school
2005-2012, advertising copywriter at different advertising companies
2009-2010, “Spektral” Graz, Austria – voluntary work at cultural centre, open space, commons
2011-2012, Literary Academy – education programme for writers
2002-2006, philosophy studies at University of Latvia
ILZE MAZPANE 