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Cry over

This stage work is the artistic answer to the early works of Pola Nireńska, the Polish dancer and choreographer of Jewish origin who began her career in Mary Wigman’s group in the1930’s. During the Dance Congress in 1934 in Vienna, she was awarded for her choreography entitled Cry. Despite the success, the solo Pola Nireńska’s solo career was a continuous, lonely and fearful escape from the experience of Nazi persecution.

CRY OVER

Licht über den Häusern hin
Ein Traumring schnell vorbei
Ein wenig Zauberei
Ein kleines Spiel
Ein Sommerabend
Luft vibrierte

Wenn ich nicht will, ich will nicht
Wenn ich nicht will, ich will nicht
Hört ihr?

The main inspiration for this choreography comes from images of the artist a description of Cry. The result is a stage performance composed of fragmented information, traces and associations connected to the works of the dancer. The choreographic traces led us back to the methods developed by Mary Wigman and German Ausdruckstanz. Each dance étudewas developed by improvising on a single element. Over the course of our daily rehearsals, new elements were added to create full choreographical sentences, paragraphs and chapters. Ausdruckstanz was the tool Pola used to face the traumas of war, offering her the recuperation of catharsis. For us, she become the inspiration to create  this work.

This choreographic Practice as Research project was supported by the Polish Institute of Music and Dance.

Choreography and Dance: Iwona Wojnicka, Gosia Gajdemska
Music Compositons and Dance: India Czajkowska
Director of Light and Space: Roman Woźniak
Sound realization: Rafał Smoliński
Graphic design: Beata Pofelska
Stylization:  Roman Woźniak, Zuzanna Sapeta
Manager: Joanna Stasina
Production: Art Collective Format Zero

Premiere 15th of June 2016, Teatr Academia, Warsaw

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?