Gdańsk: Second installment of “PERFORATIONS: Memory of Water”

On 21-24 October 2016, the Amareya Theatre & Guests will present the second installment of their project PERFORATIONS: Memory of water. It is the cyclical project of artistic and animated events launched by the Amareya Art Association and invited artists from Gdańsk, Poland and abroad, as well as local institutional partners. The title ?Perforations? refers to the multifunctional work of ?perforations? ? the making of holes ? and the ?rationale? ? an impulse, a reason, a truth which can be injected in our lives by performing arts. As a cyclical event, ?Perforations? entail the making of symbolic holes in the surrounding reality. ?Perforations? is a new event on the cultural map of Poland; it enables the creation and promotion of new works in performing arts, and engages outstanding artists from Gdańsk, Poland and abroad, while also including marginalized social groups in the artistic and culture-producing activities.

On 21-22 October (7 pm), Anna Domańska and Adriana Majdzińska will present their installations, accompanied by Magdalena Smolak?s curatorial project. The Saturday night will open with a presentation of Aurora Lubos?s performance Witajcie!/Welcome!. On Sunday and Monday, the Amareya Theatre & Guests will show their performance/installation Memory of water, starring:  Barbara Kinga Majewska, Katarzyna Pastuszak, Joanna Duda, Aleksandra Śliwińska, Yuko Kawamoto and Bartosz Cybowski.

Venue:

Centrum WL4 – Gdańsk nad Motławą, (ul. Wiosny Ludów 4, Gdańsk)

About the events:

Memory of water is a synsesthetic meditation on the vanitative nature of human memory, and the hidden life of water and its memory. Inspired by the book of the Japanese researcher Masaru Emoto, The Message from Water, this performance/installation takes up the difficult memories of the survivors of 2011 tsunami in Japan. Water Memory is made up by water, movement, sound, body, video, and memories of the residents of Sendai, a city devastated by the tsunami, whom the artists interviewed during their September visit to Japan.

Concept: Katarzyna Pastuszak, Joanna Duda

Choreography: Katarzyna Pastuszak, Yuko Kawamoto

Dancers: Katarzyna Pastuszak, Yuko Kawamoto, Aleksandra Śliwińska

Music – composition: Joanna Duda

Music – performance: Joanna Duda

Voice: Barbara Kinga Majewska

Video: Joanna Duda, Katarzyna Pastuszak 

Lighting design: Bartosz Cybowski

Duration: 60 min.

Aurora Lubos: Witajcie!/Welcome?

About the performance:

I am interested in the human being, the one who is safe but reluctant to taking in others, who escape from war, conflict, oppression, death, hunger. I am interested in the situation of conflict, menace, suffering. What would the satiated, self-satisfied Western people feel in such a situation, how would they approach those whose daily reality centers around a struggle for survival? One of the elements of the show is the documentation of From the Water, a performance which took place on a beach in Sopot in mid-October 2015, on the Solidarity with Refugees Day. The piece was my commentary on immigrants dying in the sea, a transposition of those images onto our Polish, tangible reality, an attempt to encourage empathy among the audience, the indifferent, the witnesses. ?So many people: infants, young men and women, couples, families, the elderly and the disabled, from each stage and walk of life, of the type you may encounter in your neighborhood? (an excerpt from a text by a volunteer working in the Dobova camp in Slovenia).

The performance is Co-financed by the Pomorskie Province.

Water stories ? installation by Anna Domańska

Water Stories covers the perilous journey from Turkey to Greece across the Aegean Sea, made by hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria and other countries in the region. These people flee from war or circumstances which prevent them from a safe life in compliance with basic human rights. Ania Domańska has been meeting refugees since the fall of 2015, when she served as a volunteer on the so-called Balkan refugee trail. From March 2016 on, she has been travelling to Athens, where she documents meetings with newcomers. Since march 2016, over fifty thousand people have been stuck in Greece following the closing of European borders. They live in temporary camps in harsh conditions; the camps are often situated in isolated locations, and their infrastructure is insufficient. Many people camp in the port of Piraeus, many have no shelter whatsoever and live in the street. The materials presented in the installation provide a direct account of the experience of the risky journey across the sea. The first installment of the project in Brzeźno Beach will feature a sound installation, including the recordings of memories, conversations with people who landed in Greece. The second installment, presented in Centrum WL4, will also feature film recordings.

Hado: Memory of water ? installation by Adriana Majdzińska

An open space initiative, HADO: Memory of water relates directly to Masaru Emoto?s notion of water?s natural propensity to order its own structure. Water particles shaped like regular hexagons exhibit traits of a ?good?, ?healing? and ?therapeutic? substance. This positive message is ?memorized? and retransmitted by water. The chaos and noise of civilization are destructive to the harmony of water structure. Five ?containers/niches? in the sand of Brzeźno Beach, lined with a mat imprinted with positive signs are intended as a type of vessels which detect positive information. The sea water they contain ?encodes? this information and?poured back into the sea?passes it on?

Liquid Video Session ? curator?s project by Magdalena Smolak presented in collaboration with the Baltic Sea Culture Centre in Gdańsk

As part of the collaboration with the Baltic Sea Culture Centre, Magdalena Smolak will present her curator?s project Liquid Video Session. Comprising selected one-minute films from around the world, inspired with water in the broadest sense of the word (geographic, chemical, hydrological, literary or symbolic). The first version of the project came to fruition as an accompanying event of Hydro active City, an innovative post-competition exhibition in Gdańsk, displayed at the Baltic Sea Culture Centre between 31 May and 2 June 2013, as part of the international project ART LINE. 

Media patrons:

TVP Kultura

Trójmiasto.pl

Magazyn Torii

Japonia.online

Pomorskie.eu ? Wrota Pomorza

Partners:

The City of Gdańsk

Marshall of the Pomorskie Province

WL4 ? Art Space

Klub Żak

Baltic Sea Culture Centre

MONAR Gdańsk ? Matarnia

Grupa LOTOS S.A.

MOSiR Gdańsk

Cooperative for the Visually and Hearing Impaired

Occupational Therapy Workshops ?Sinol? in Gdańsk