As part of the Dance Activism. Spaces of Choreography, the Nowy Theatre in Warsaw (ul. Madalińskiego 10/16) is pleased to invite everyone to the presentation of Alex Baczyński-Jenkins?s Radiance, Lo-Res on Sunday, 7 May (7 pm). The choreography begins with Dido?s Lament from Henry Purcell?s opera Dido and Aeneas (1689). Purcell used passus duriusculus, a Baroque composition technique also known as the ?lament bass.? This melodic excerpt acts as a starting point for Baczyński-Jenkins?s choreographic structure. The eponymous low resolution blurs the subject?s contours and emphasizes their materiality. The piece was created in 2015 as part of Anna Królica?s curator?s project Choreographic Machine, developed at the Centre for the Documentation of the Art of Tadeusz Kantor CRICOTEKA in Cracow.
The piece will be performed by Paweł Sakowicz, Ramona Nagabczyńska and Jayson Patterson.
Choreography: Alex Baczyński-Jenkins
Performed by: Paweł Sakowicz, Ramona Nagabczyńska and Jayson Patterson
Creation and premiere performance: Paweł Sakowicz and Natalia Stanińska
Lighting design: Przemysław Brymkiewicz
Sound: Romain Hamard
Dramaturgical collaboration: Krzysztof Bagiński
Produced by: Centre for the Documentation of the Art of Tadeusz Kantor CRICOTEKA, as part of Choreographic Machine 2015.
Tickets: PLN 35/25
Entrance cards: PLN 20
Dance Activism. Spaces of Choreography
Curators: Maria Stokłosa, Magdalena Ptasznik, Eleonora Zdebiak
A series of six works by Polish choreographers Alex Baczyński-Jenkins, Ola Maciejewska, Anna Nowicka, Magdalena Ptasznik, Maria Stokłosa and Marta Ziółek. Performances will be accompanied by discussions, open original workshops with the artists and a series of articles published in Dwutygodnik.com.
Dance Activism
When we talk about choreography, in the context of invited performances, we are referring to the concept of activism ? an approach favouring activity and change over stability and permanence. Activism is not understood here as social or political engagement linked with focusing on certain themes. What we have in mind is an attitude that concentrates on provoking motion and setting in motion. The choreography we want to present takes changeability and instability as a prerequisite. It does not follow a single theatre convention, but it seeks and offers ways of embodiment that follow the logics of consistent search. It strives to expand the limits of forms that create meanings. It provokes and activates different ways of perceiving and experiencing movement, and, consequently, the body, space, time, the object and their relationships. We propose to shift attention from what movement in dance may represent, may mean, to how it achieves that ? how it is formed and manifested, how it changes and is subject to change. We are wondering in what fields choreography can function in current times.
Spaces of Choreography
The goal of this series is not to (re)formulate the definition of dance, but to ask the question what dance may be and what it may do, what performative force it manifests. We also want to put in circulation and develop the concept of choreography in a more conscious way.
Choreography, which literally means writing down the dance, is presently being appropriated by different fields, from social sciences to exact and natural sciences. In biological sciences, there is talk about, for example, molecular and cellular choreography; in physics ? about n-body choreography; in programming, there is the Web Service Choreography Interface ? a specification that describes the dynamics of interaction between Internet services. In his book Social Choreography: Ideology as Performance in Dance and Everyday Movement, Andrew Hewitt writes about choreography as a method of practicing ideology; and the Institute of Social Choreography in Frankfurt am Main explores the ways choreography may contribute to the development of non-standard social practices and systems.
In its relationship with dance, choreography often remains in the background. For example, until recently there were no choreography schools that admit candidates without educational background in dance. For us, it is interesting to shift the attention from dance to choreographic processes and practices. We see choreography as a technology of action, composing the directions / manifestations of movement in specific conditions ? navigating the processes, forming actions, providing the framework for events, organising the movement of elements that make up the situation created.
The series we offer sets the concept of choreography in the centre of attention.
Dance activism is a space for choreography.
Media patrons: taniecPOLSKA.pl, Dwutygodnik.com