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\\u017dygimantas Kudirka is Lithuania\\u2019s leading spoken-word artist and agent provocateur. A prolific writer and creative artist, he has won Europe\\u2019s Best Slam Poet as well as multiple hip-hop awards, blending satire and social critique with dystopian and futurist themes. \\u017dygimantas, who goes by the alias MC Messiah, is shaking up the scene with a new libretto for the opera Brave New Body, teaming up with avant-garde composer Arturas Bum\\u0161teinas. Kudirka\\u2019s texts play with the idea of the human body as a machine, not without his trademark satire, and sets them to the sutartin\\u0117, an ancient polyphonic form found in Lithuania which has Unesco status. Is it possible to combine centuries-old traditional music with hyper-modern dystopian themes? We sit in on rehearsals with the Lietuva Song and Dance Ensemble leading up to the opera\\u2019s premiere, commissioned by the Operomanija festival in Vilnius.