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?