Category Archives: spectacle

A brief history…

Premiere at Festiwal Konfrontacje Europejskie, Warszawa, 2017

The story is inspired by Bill Bryson’s book A Short Story of Nearly Everything, which readily describes some of the scientific phenomena. Since its release, the book has been sold in 300,000 copies. This fact raises a series of questions about the possibility of using such a method in choreography. For example: what could be a brief history of one choreographer’s work? What is a short story? Is the short story able to tell anything about the artist’s work? And if so, what would it say? What do not we learn from such a story?

In connection with these questions, a dance performance was created. Performance, which is an artistic response to the work of Israeli choreographer Michael Getman. In the program we will see Michael Getman’s solo Am I (composed for Talia Paz) performed by himself, as well as a series of choreographic monologues by Iwona Wojnicka and Michał Góral. We will also see a film collage by Marta Kawecka, mapped to the scene by Piotr Cieślik. Performance will also be composed by improvising musicians – Piotr Mełech, Tadeusz Sudnik, Rafał Smoliński Wojtek Kurek.  

Am I \\ Dancer: Talia Paz. Choreography of Michael Getman

A short and personal creation for the Dancer Talia Paz. The dance movements

are all part of Talia Paz’s personal movement material she embodied and performed in the last 20 years. Various forms of expression stretched from Ohad Naharin to Matz Ek’s significant style, from Stijn Celis to Sharon Eyal’s extreme body language, are being re-visited and examined by Talia Paz. Deconstructing the text of the famous tune from the chorus line ‘Let Me Dance For You‘ into fragments of words and breathes, allows Talia to reformulate her artistic presence and skills.

Straddling the line between personal physicality to spoken text and the uncertain relations evolving on stage between these, triggers Talia Paz to challenge her current physical and emotional state. A paradoxical landscape is created, shifting between the tragic and the comic, between the gaze and the hearing, between the said and the done and between the body’s desire to master the craft and to lose power and form.

“A sober and sobering dance, which incorporates a rare self-consciousness, a wonderful talent and a healthy humour.” Merav Yudilovitch.

Dance, choreography: Iwona Wojnicka, Michael Getman, Michał Góral
Music: Piotr Mełech (clarinet, bass clarinet), Tadeusz Sudnik (life electronic) Rafał Smolinski (bass), Wojtek Kurek (drums).
Movie collage: Marta Kawecka
Video mapping: Piotr Cieślik

Recital Nireńska&Parnell

WARSAW DANCE MUSEUM – Pola Nireńska & Feliks Parnell is a project referring to the cultural aspects of the history of Warsaw and the achievements of Warsaw dancers from the interwar period. It will allow you to meet with you the former and present Warsaw, through the original dance works of Iwona Wojnicka and Artur Grabarczyk based on reconstructions of works and choreographic methods of artists from 1918-1939, also in the context of their biography and the specificity of that time in art and everyday life. Dance will become a medium here to look at the history of Warsaw after regaining independence, the role of history in art and art in history, and to reflect on how now – decades later – is created and alive in the capital, f, the remainings of the splendor of the interwar period, what connects us today with Warsaw of the past.

Global Water Dances Zielona Góra 2017

Everything is out of water, water has been created and made of water

Marta Kawecka

The ancients were tormenting all the problems afflicting the community through rituals and art, the important element of which was interaction, participation, blurring the border between the actors and the audience. The idea of ​​the community focused around “Global Water Dance” also refers to the original aims of art. This community wishes to draw attention to the problem of water shortage by playing in the world of the same score inspired by water.

You will have the opportunity to see the Polish interpretation of the score on June 24 at Heroes Square in Zielona Góra. The author of the performance and personal interpretation of the “water score” is Iwona Wojnicka – a choreographer, a dancer associated with the Format Zero Association – the organizer of the whole undertaking.

The score includes four components – the ritual part, the local part, the global part and the participatory part.

www.globalwaterdances.org

291. Dynamics of Chaos

291. Dynamics of Chaos is an interdisciplinary project, that combines dance, performance and audio/visual art (experimental music, sound art, experimental photography, film, video art, installation, objects etc.), inspired by Dadaism, its German creators and its influence on contemporary art. Over the course of a 4-day long meeting in Berlin and a week-long creative laboratory in Warsaw, 10 artists will prepare an artistic installation – their personal response to Dadaism – to be presented in September 2016 in Warsaw.

The project is co-financed by the City of Warsaw on the 25th anniversary of the partnership between Warsaw and Berlin.

Theme:
We are looking for ideas that resonate with Dadaism and with the main topic:

Dynamics of Chaos. What is your personal answer?

Who we are?
5 artists from Warsaw and 5 artists form Berlin.

We are open-minded regarding discipline and format. We welcome ideas in the areas of dance, performance, theater, installation, film/video art, music and sound art, object art, interactive and participatory art – anything is possible! You can propose a solo work or a format to be developed in cooperation with other artists (one person or more) who are invited to the project.

Partners:
Berlin – agitPolska, K77 Studio, Club der Polnischen Versager, Exploratorium Berlin, Spektrum Berlin  Warsaw. The Academia Theatre.

www.dynamicsofchaos.blogspot.com

Mare imbrium

Since I was dancing Butoh, there was always one question on my mind: what is Butoh dance, actually? Should I paint myself white and loose ten kilos to become a Butoka? Or should I undress? Or maybe, the opposite – should I cover myself with a bunch of torn rugs? Should I dance slowly and meditate? Or maybe I should perform site-specific? By asking these questions of myself and others I finally understood that, for me, the most interesting aspect of Butoh is the choreographic style – that is, not who is moving, but how?

However, is the movement itself enough to create a stage performance? Besides, there are three other strands of the dance medium, namely the performer, sound and space. Concerning the interplay between them, I considered would happen if I were to replace the skinny Japanese man with a normal, white woman? Perhaps the replacement of a Japanese dancer with a European one was just a localized version of this kind of dance, which was once revolutionary in Europe? Is the male version of Swan Lake by Matthew Bourne similarly revolutionary?

The interplay of the four strands of the dance medium was performed live by Prof. Stanisław Skoczyński, the percussionist, Prof. Roman Woźniak, the scenographer, and Dr. Paula Jaszczyk, the multimedia artist, who worked with the relationship between colour and the performer. Mare Imbrium lets us exchange and materialize our fascinations with forms of art practically unknown to us.

Choreography and Dance: Iwona Wojnicka
Scenography and Lighting: Roman Woźniak
Music: Stanisław Skoczyński, Kacper Sedek
Sound: Anna Górna
Multimedia: Paula Jaszczyk
Costume design: Zuzanna Sapeta
Production: Stowarzyszenie i Kolektyw Artystyczny Format Zero

www.4mareimbrium.blogspot.com

Warsaw Dance Muzeum

The Warsaw Museum of Dance is a project which presents the achievements of the Pioneers of Modern Dance in Warsaw between 1918 – 1939 in the interpretation of contemporary Varsovian dancers and choreographers, inviting the city’s residents to discover the history and identity of the town from the perspective of dance.

Program of the Warsaw Museum of Dance in 2017:

Public presentations based on the reconstruction of the works of four prominent figures as interpreted by four Varsovian dancers. The performance will take place on the 20th of May, 2017, during the Night of Museums at the Museum of Warsaw.

Dance Workshops for the general public, to be held before the Night of Museums.

Creation of a Warsaw Dance Map based on collected archival materials and with the participation of Warsaw residents. The map will take the form of an installation at the Night of Museums and on the project website.   

Documentary films presenting dance figures from the interwar period in the interpretation of the contemporary dancers and taking place in a variety of Warsaw venues.

Artistic director: Iwona Wojnicka
Dramaturgy: Gosia Gajdemska
Choreography and dance: Gosia Gajdemska, Artur Grabarczyk, Bartosz Ostrowski, Iwona Wojnicka
Space: Roman Woźniak
Music: Wiktor Podgórski
Communication strategy: Daniel Jarociński
PR: Joanna Stasina
Production: Format Zero

The project is co-financed by the City of Warsaw.
Inspired by Manifeste pour un Musée de la danse by Borisa Charmatza

www.muzeumtanca.pl

I”M

A dance performance, inspired by the characters Yvonne from the drama “Yvonne, Princess of Burgundy” by Witold Gombrowicz and by Margarita from the novel “The Master and Margarita” by Mikhail Bulgakov, in which we pose the question of identity, image, fluid boundaries in a world of instant changes and technology dominance…

I”M… Iwona… Małgorzata… reality and fiction…
two female personas …. together but separately…
between the individual and the collective….
they create and transform themselves…

The performance is a stage work in triptych form, which opens up a discussion
on the structure of the play, the presence of the dancer and the number of performers.

Concept: Gosia Gajdemska
Choreography and Dance: Gosia Gajdemska, Iwona Wojnicka
Space Design: Roman  Woźniak
Audio-Visual Composition: Wiktor Podgórski
Sound Design: Rafał Smoliński
Photos and Esseys: Marta Kawecka
Videography: Marta Abdalla-Dutkiewicz
PR and Coordination: Joanna Stasina
Production: Format Zero

PREMIERE: 23th of September 2017
ZAWIROWANIA CENTER, ul. Belwederska 20/22, Warsaw

The project  co-financed by the City of Warsaw.

TWO WOMAN by Marta Kawecka

(…) I”M are Yvonne and Margaret – two women. I”M also a sign that immediately sends us to English meaning of myself, which is I’m. Iwona and Margaret are. Title multiplies questions. How to be Yvonne? How to be Marguerite? Can one be both at once? What is hidden under these names – what women? How to be a woman? What are women? What are we? How to be?

Who is the woman in herself, her emotionality, detached from the context of relationship, family, schema, stereotype? Is more often Iwona or Malgorzata? Or maybe it’s usually trying to be between – on the Ball at Satan, where the outer rhythm itself abandons to mechanical trance? Who is she? Who are they? Who we are? What does it mean to be? (…)

The performance is divided into three parts. In the first one we can see the ascetic Iwona, imprisoned in her body (the role by Gosia Gajdemska). The second scene reveals two dancers bound tightly by the trans rhythm. The third part belongs to, liberating from the shackles of everything that is not her own, genuine, Margaret (the role of Małgorzata is embodied by Iwona Wojnicka). The three parts are three different states, three different approaches to the body, movement, emotion, to find oneself.

       Iwona’s body is subordinated to thoughts. Ascetic movements. Striving to say everything in one gesture. Body closed in symbol, sign.

          Margaret’s body screams, frees, clears. On the pages of Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel, Malgorzata, freed from the limitations, the facades of everyday life, liberate, flying naked over Moscow. In I”M  Margaret liberates by purifying the body from the weight of the mind. Movements become instinctive, sensual, free from external constraints.

Does the mind manage the body? Does the body guide the mind? Can the body and mind meet in the trance rhythm of repetitive gestures? Are not our gestures made of gestures – rhythmical, combined or detached from the body?

According to Zygmunt Freud’s terminology, Iwona’s body could represent the superego – the subordination of culture, and the body of Marguerite’s instinct. For Freud, in between is the ego, the everyday, I. In I”M between Iwona and Margaret, superego and id is a techno party – contemporary Satan Ball, dominated by simple movements, performed in one rhythm, but separately. This difference, the individuality of each character is revealed in detail. Among the characters there is no such contrast as between emotions of the first and third scene. Characters meet in between. Or maybe these are not different characters, but different parts of the same person try to communicate in a trance rhythm? Maybe it’s a story about one person, changed by the case? Who am I? Who you are? Who is? Who we are?