“The success of business also depends on a successful and intellectually vibrant society,” agree representatives of various companies that became patrons of ConTempo, the contemporary performing arts festival, this year. According to the festival organisers, without support from businesses and philanthropic foundations, the programme would have been around 45% smaller. Yet the benefits of these partnerships are mutual: the festival gives businesses visibility, an opportunity to become part of city life, and a way to strengthen their ties with the community.
The ConTempo programme, which began in August and ran for more than a week, featured over 50 performances by performing arts professionals from seven countries and regions, while more than 20 venues opened their doors to audiences. Across three cities, ConTempo attracted as many as 18,000 spectators, while 340 children from different parts of Lithuania had an opportunity to discover the performing arts up close through the ConTempo for Kids programme.
According to festival director Gintarė Masteikaitė, support from businesses makes it possible to dream bigger and set more ambitious goals. However, although the festival programme would be considerably smaller and less diverse without the involvement of patrons, she also emphasises the importance of a shared vision when building partnerships.
Gintarė Masteikaitė, foto M. Plepys
“Every business or company we work with has its own philosophy and values. So, before deciding to work together, we first need to establish whether our visions align. If they do not, the partnership is bound to fail sooner or later. When they do align, we look for the best model of cooperation—one that is meaningful both for us and for the business. It is especially rewarding when a company brings not only financial support to the partnership, but also its expertise, experience, spaces, contacts or ideas. This allows us not only to achieve more, but also to learn and grow ourselves.”
Masteikaitė notes that the partnerships that emerge can take very different forms.
“Opening privately owned business spaces to culture, special educational programmes, creating new works, developing festival professionals, increasing the city’s attractiveness, fostering critical thinking, developing and integrating special products, and attracting new audiences and customer flows—these are just some of the topics we are discussing with our partners today,” says the festival director.
Contemporary Performing Arts at a Factory
This year’s festival programme opened with RoZéO, a performance by the French company Gratte Ciel, in the courtyard of the Kauno Grūdai factory. The industrial surroundings and buildings that have stood there for decades became an important part of the performance, while visitors had an opportunity to enter the factory grounds for the first time.
Andrius Pranckevičius, CEO of AB Kauno Grūdai, says that one of the motivations for getting involved was the opportunity to bring together two very different worlds—manufacturing and culture. Although people see and recognise Kauno Grūdai products, they rarely think about the environment in which those products are made.
Andrius Pranckevičius, Kauno grūdai
“Kauno Grūdai has been operating in Kaunas for a very long time, so it is important for us to feel that we are not simply a company located in this city, but part of the city itself. Opening the premises of an operating company to culture is certainly not the easiest decision—it requires organisational preparation as well as the involvement of our people. But these are precisely the partnerships that are most interesting: when a business does more than provide financial support and actually becomes part of the project, contributing something unique that it can offer,” says Pranckevičius.
According to the CEO, it does not always make sense to assess everything a business does solely in terms of direct returns. Sometimes an unexpected encounter between very different fields can create far greater value than a traditional sponsorship model.
“A company operates within a particular society, city and community—this is where our employees and their families live, and where our future employees and customers are growing up. It is therefore natural that we should be interested not only in economic prosperity, but also in the broader vitality of the environment in which we operate. The festival also allowed people to enter our premises in a completely different capacity—not as customers, partners or employees, but as city residents and members of a cultural audience. It creates an opportunity to show that industry is not a world separated from the city, and that a company can be open, curious, willing to share its spaces and ready to play an active role in the community,” says Pranckevičius.
The Festival Also Reached 340 Children from Lithuania’s Regions
Another particularly important part of this year’s programme was ConTempo for Kids, a joint project by the ConTempo festival and the philanthropic Devbridge Foundation. Through the initiative, as many as 340 children from smaller towns had their first encounter with the performing arts. They took part in workshops, met performing arts professionals, and, for many of them, attended a live performance for the first time in their lives.
Gintarė Dzindzelėtaitė-Kelmelė, Director of the Devbridge Foundation, explains that the decision to offer this experience specifically to children from Lithuania’s regions was no coincidence. Professional theatre, contemporary dance and high-quality festivals remain physically inaccessible to many people living outside Lithuania’s major urban centres.
Gintarė Dzindzelėtaitė Kelmelė foto by Agnė Popierė.
“This choice mattered to me for one simple reason: curiosity and creativity cannot be ‘planned’ exclusively for cities. A child from Kybartai has exactly the same potential to create boldly and innovatively as a child from central Kaunas. They simply need someone to open the door, guide them through it and help them believe that they can do it too. We wanted contemporary performing arts and creative technologies to reach precisely those places where such opportunities are most scarce. And yes, I will say it directly: today, where a child lives in Lithuania still has far too much influence on the cultural and educational experiences available to them. It is the same regional disparity that we see in education, mathematics results and teacher shortages,” says Dzindzelėtaitė-Kelmelė.
According to the foundation’s director, the Devbridge Foundation focuses on three areas: innovation in education and access to knowledge, youth entrepreneurship, and the promotion of Lithuanian culture.
“Across all these initiatives, we deliberately prioritise regional schools where access to such opportunities is most limited. ConTempo for Kids follows exactly the same logic, only through a different channel—not through the classroom, but through the stage. The central idea behind this initiative is that technology can become a partner in creativity, while creativity can give young people the confidence and motivation to use technology.”
Dzindzelėtaitė-Kelmelė notes that Lithuania is still at a very early stage when it comes to philanthropy and patronage.
“In the United States or Denmark, there are both tax incentives and a long-standing cultural tradition in which giving back to society is seen as a natural part of running a successful business. We want to set an example for other Lithuanian entrepreneurs and show that this can be done here as well,” she says.
Investing in Young Talent
For the second consecutive year, UAB Baltisches Haus supported the festival’s programme for emerging artists. According to the company’s director, Audrius Masionis, business is not an isolated island, but rather an integral part of society.
“The success of our business directly depends on the kind of society in which we live and operate. If, through culture, we foster a critically minded, mature and resilient society, we naturally develop stronger institutions. Stronger institutions make better-quality decisions, which in turn creates a stronger economy and better conditions for businesses to invest and grow. For businesses that have operated in Lithuania for decades, accumulated capital and want to continue working here, it certainly cannot be a matter of indifference what kind of society we will be living in 10 or 20 years from now,” says Masionis.
Audrius Masionis, Baltisches Haus
Through its support for the ConTempo festival, Baltisches Haus also invested in a development programme for emerging performing arts critics.
“If, with our support, we can help train even three to five strong critics in Lithuania, that will already represent an enormous, long-term impact,” says Masionis.
According to the director, what matters is not simply transferring sponsorship funds or displaying a company logo on a partner’s website, but helping to address systemic gaps. The impact of culture cannot be measured over a few days or even a single year, but when the work is consistent and sustained over time, the results become evident.
“What we take away today is confirmation that professional partnership works. Cultural organisations approach us not as ‘petitioners’, but with a strong vision, a professional team and a clear value proposition. When you see that an organisation knows exactly what it is doing and why, trust grows naturally.”
According to ConTempo director Gintarė Masteikaitė, partnering with the festival can offer businesses more than visibility—it can also provide an opportunity to build a meaningful relationship with the city, its people and its community.
“One simple idea resonates deeply with me: on our own, we can accomplish little, but together, we can accomplish a great deal. It is precisely when different competencies, experiences and resources come together that things become possible which neither side could create on its own,” says the festival director.
Contempo for Kids