Na zdjęciu: Kagaya Sanae w spektaklu Tomoe Shizune & Hakutobo „Kanzan z Renyo-sho – z dala od kwiatu lotosu”. Fot. Sebastian Marco.
On Friday 15 April 2016 at 7 pm the Polski Theatre in Bydgoszcz (Al. Mickiewicza 2) will present the premiere of Take It or Make It, a performance based on Ana Vujanović?s concept (artistic and conceptual collaboration: Saša Asentić, Marta Popivoda, dramaturgical collaboration, project curator: Marta Keil). The piece includes five solos composed of actions that form group situations. Five universes created as self-sufficient worlds whose actors individually and freely interpret the same score. Like in music, the score restricts them and at the same time creates space for joint action. In group situations, every performer and every solo is considered equal.
One would expect that these situations would result in harmony, following the principle that one’s freedom ends where someone else’s freedom begins. But we know already that this doesn?t work. What we still don’t know is whether this results in a fulfilment of dreams or in a nightmare. Where have the visions, passions and liberal ideas of ?live and let live? gone? Where is the ?shared world??
Based on these premises, Take It or Make It is a (social) choreographic piece focusing on how to configure a group situation democratically. However, once we decide to reject the existing, clearly ineffective democratic models, the question of what democracy we want comes into focus. Can we make democracy our organizational principle?
Are we capable of making it, instead of taking (or leaving) it?
Next presentations will be held on 16?17 April 2016.
Author’s statement:
The main concern of this work is how to configure a group situation democratically.
In a wider sense, I am interested in the opportunities offered by democracy and in the discontent with representative democracy that gradually excludes the voices of common people from making political decisions about the society. I am particularly annoyed by the process of transition from socialism to capitalism in Eastern Europe and Yugoslavia, where the implementation of democratic procedures required to join the family of European Union countries is seen as a proof of successful transition. But in reality, democracy remains in the sphere of declarations, while corruption, criminal privatisation of public property, oligarchies, nationalism and homophobia are growing. This raises the question, what kind of democracy do we want? Is the EU model of democracy we have adopted the only possible one? Do we, the people, have the will, skills and power to render democracy our organizational principle?
For several years, I have been reflecting on Roberto Esposito?s diagnosis of present times which he called ?a situation that joins in a unique epochal knot the failure of all communisms with the misery of new individualism?. In an attempt to handle that knot, Take It or Make It examines group situations with artists who try to overcome the traps of democracy while contesting the ?rationality? of the European neoliberal society. Thus, Take It or Make It a (social) choreographic piece for five performers based on a shared score, which oscillates between the freedom of individual interpretations and the questions of collaboration and antagonism in collective structures.
? Ana Vujanović, Bydgoszcz, January 2016
Ana Vujanović is a performing arts and culture theorist and practitioner. She used to work in Belgrade, where she co-founded the TkH [Walking Theory], a theoretical-artistic platform and performance journal. Now she lives in Berlin and Hamburg, where she writes, lectures and engages in performance making. Her research interests include the intersection of performance and politics in neoliberal society.
Concept: Ana Vujanović
Artistic and conceptual collaboration: Saša Asentić, Marta Popivoda
Dramaturgical collaboration: Marta Keil
Stage manager: Mateusz Stebliński
By and with: Saša Asentić, Maciej Pesta, Marta Popivoda, Sonia Roszczuk, Piotr Wawer Jr
Curator: Marta Keil
