A Tale of Kings

A|CH THEATRE “A Tale of Kings”

A dance performance set to music by Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis and other Lithuanian composers.

Director-choreographer and librettist: Anželika Cholina
Set designer: Marijus Jacovskis
Costume designer: Olga Filatova-Kontrimienė
Lighting designer: Eugenijus Sabaliauskas
Video artist: Tomas Stonys

The performance features 32 dancers from Anželika Cholina Dance Theatre, the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre, Kaunas State Musical Theatre, and the ACH Youth Company.

Anželika Cholina’s latest work, which premiered in July 2025, has already secured a special place in Lithuanian theatre history. A record 35,000 people have seen it to date. Based on national ticket sales (according to www.bilietai.lt), the performance has also been recognised as the most-watched dance production in Lithuania in 2025.

Created as Lithuania and the world mark the 150th anniversary of Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis’s birth, and becoming one of the most striking highlights of the Čiurlionis Year cultural programme, the performance continues its journey across the country and into audiences’ hearts in ACH Theatre’s new, 27th season.

“A Tale of Kings” is an epic, poetic and visually rich dance performance that reveals anew, with sensitivity and drama, the extraordinary life story of a great Lithuanian composer and artist whose life remains too little known.

“What matters to me in this work is to recreate as accurately as possible the psychological portrait of Čiurlionis the man: his relationship with his art, the women in his life, and his early tragic fate, when his soul, unrecognised in time and submerged in deprivation and darkness, left this world before his body…” says the performance’s director, choreographer and librettist, A. Cholina.

The main characters are not only Čiurlionis himself at three stages of his life and the most important women in his life—his first love, Marija Moravska; his patron, Bronislava Volman; and his wife, Sofija Kymantaitė—but also Čiurlionis’s art, which, in the creator’s view, was his very essence. In “A Tale of Kings”, Čiurlionis’s extraordinary and profound world comes to life: a gift from God to him, and a source of suffering all at once. This inner world is embodied by 25 female dancers from ACH Theatre’s Youth Company, who together form a distinct, unified character that is central to the performance.

This is not the first time that the young dance talents nurtured by A. Cholina have appeared on the grand stages of ACH and other Lithuanian theatres, but never before on such a large scale. Alongside the magnificent ensemble scenes, the leading roles in “A Tale of Kings” are played, as always, by some of Lithuania’s brightest professional dance stars and leading soloists from ACH Theatre and other theatres across the country: Jonas Laucius, Nora Straukaitė, Martynas Čiučiulka, Olesia Šaitanova, Beata Molytė, Rokas Spalinskas, Vadimas Krupeninas and others.

The scale of the premiere is impressive: more than 30 performers dance in the production, with over 300 costumes created for them. Sets and visuals change dynamically, drawing the audience into an almost two-hour journey through Čiurlionis’s world, vividly told through dance, from birth to death.

“There’s simply no way to tell this story more briefly or modestly—the subject itself demands a grand expression,” A. Cholina says of her determination to spare no resources. “There can be no compromises: if you take on a subject like this, you have to do it to the fullest.”

IMPORTANT! As part of our continued efforts to encourage the tradition of cultural patronage in Lithuania, we invite you to support the future of the independent, self-funded ACH Theatre by purchasing a special PATRON TICKET for all our performances, priced above the regular ticket. Your support enables our theatre to plan new premieres, maintain a professional company of performers, tour throughout Lithuania—including remote regions where professional performing arts are less accessible—and spare no expense in the artistic and technical quality of our productions. The continued growth in sales of these tickets shows us that we are not alone. Thank you to all our current and future ACH Theatre supporters!

To help bring about positive change in society and foster a new attitude towards cultural patronage in our country, two years ago we took the lead in educating young people and nurturing a new generation of cultural patrons. We are continuing this initiative in the new season for all young people aged 15–24: they can continue to buy FUTURE PATRON TICKETS for all ACH Theatre performances and watch from a special row alongside the theatre’s Patrons. These tickets are available to young people with a 50% discount already applied. On arrival, they need only present a document proving their age along with their ticket. We are confident that giving young people the opportunity to see our theatre’s performances on special terms will help nurture a generation of young people in Lithuania who care about theatre, art and culture.

For purchases of 10 or more tickets, contact vipklientai@bilietai.lt

Doors open 1 hour before the event.
Duration: 1 hour 50 minutes (no intermission)
Children are not admitted free of charge.
Age restriction: N-10
Discounts: students, school pupils, seniors and people with disabilities
Information: +370 688 34181; teatras@ach.lt
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCZCopkny0Y
Organiser: Anželikos Cholinos šokio teatras, VšĮ