Pictured: “The Ninth”. Photo: Organisers.
Katowice and Chorzów are hosting the 22nd International Performing Arts Festival A Part organised by the A Part Theatre Association. On Wednesday 15 June 2016 at 6 pm, the Rozrywki Theatre in Chorzów (1 Konopnickiej St.) will present Petrushka ? Extended, a performance by the Danish company Granh?j Dans, an original interpretation of Igor Stravinsky?s Petrushka ballet. This is a unique, 60-minute version of the tragic farce from 1911 telling the story of a love triangle of three puppets created by the Old Wizard, a grim Russian skomorokh artist. In the original ballet by Sergei Diaghilev, the main role of Petrushka, a clown in unhappy love, was played by ballet star Vaslav Nijinsky. In Granh?j Dans interpretation, Petrushka is an international dance and music experiment realised by a Dane, a pianist from Russia and four actors/dancers from Greece (Ballerina), Scotland (Moor), Hungary (Petrushka) and Poland (Old Wizard). Featuring humour intertwined with drama, the piece is an intriguing and unusual combination of theatre, music, visual arts and dance.
On the same day at 8 pm, the Rialto Cinema-Theatre in Katowice (24 Św. Jana St.) will host Slovenian company Via Negativa?s premiere performance of The Ninth. The Anthropological Machine Powered by Beethoven choreographed by Anita Wach. The piece confronts the high with the low, inspired by Frank Westerman?s book Brother Mendel’s Perfect Horse: Man and beast in an age of human warfare which tells the story of the Lipizzaner, an exceptional breed of ?emperors? horses? that has survived the fall of the Habsburg monarchy, two world wars and insane breeding experiments conducted under Hitler, Stalin and Ceausescu. It is a contemporary fairy tale in which the story of a horse breed reveals the story of human failure.
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Petrushka ? Extended
Director: Palle Granh?j
Performers: Bill Eldridge, László Fülöp, Mikołaj Karczewski, Sofia Pintzou and Maria Eshpai
Music: Igor Stravinsky
Premiere: 2016
Polish premiere
Granh?j Dans is an excellent visual dance theatre based in Aarhus, Denmark, founded and run by dancer and choreographer Palle Granh?j. All the projects in the company?s nearly 30 years of activity are based on the Obstruction technique. In the creative process, the actor/dancer works on their own personality, transgressing their own limitations and bringing out from their internal world the general qualities that may shed some light on human existence. That is why Granh?j Dans performances are not as much about dancers and choreography as about women and men on stage ? sincere, authentic and complete. For several years, Palle Granh?j has joined forces with an international group of performers, creating pieces that refer to pop music (Cohen) and classical music (Mahler, Stravinsky).
Tickets at 35 PLN are available from the Rozrywki Theatre box office.
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The Ninth
On the one side, there?s Beethoven?s Ninth Symphony ? a masterpiece of Western civilization; giant, complex and sublime, a striking example of human spirit, a triumphant vision of brotherhood. On the other side, there?s us. Six people on the stage. Nothing great about us. Nothing triumphant. We are naked and suspicious. Not complex, but reduced. Not sublime, but explicit. Digital. Switched on or switched off. Repetitive. Blinded by the images that we see, deaf from the sounds we hear. Looking for a connection with the Animal.
?The taming of man has failed?, says Peter Sloterdijk. ?Civilisation?s potential for barbarism is growing; the everyday bestialisation of man is on the increase?. We are living in a time when the European civilization has attained a new form of brutality. In the name of defending European values, we put people behind fences, we downgrade other cultures, calling them rapists, criminals, animals. ?The European Union is a project of peace?, many diplomats will say, but the ideology of peace is based on war. We are always ready to suspend the Christian Fifth Commandment, in the name of freedom, democracy and equality. Our wars from the past are knocking on the door of the present.
In his book The Open Man and Animal, Giorgio Agamben addresses the boundaries between man and animal, between nature and civilisation, and questions the logic of Western metaphysics and science which bases the procedure of ?humanization of man? primarily on the systematic suspension of the Animal. Man is defined only in contrast to the Animal. The Animal is fading away slowly, and emptiness keeps growing within the identity of the modern individual.
Concept and direction: Bojan Jablanovec
Choreography: Anita Wach
Masks: Barbara Stupica
Video: Ana Čigon
Music: Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125
Performers: Loup Abramovici, Grega Zorc, Jaka Lah, Anita Wach, Magdalena Tuka, Korina Kordova
Premiere
Via Negativa is an original and uncompromising European theatre collective. It realises projects combining theatre, performance, happening and dance theatre, involving a range of artists of different specialization, under the eye of the company?s guiding spirit Bojan Jablanovec. A graduate of the Theatre Academy in Ljubljana, Slovenia, from many years Jablanovec worked as director in Slovenian theatres. In 1999 he gave up repertory theatre in favour of theatrical exploration. In 2002, he founded the Via Negativa group, which is an experimental artistic project and a unique intellectual concept. Jablanovec is interested in theatre seen primarily as a communication medium, a place where the artist faces the audience with a tangible, clear declaration, in person, bravely and completely. While reducing the aesthetic layer of theatre in favour of the actor-audience relationship, Via Negativa shifts the focus of theatre action from literature or stage notation to existential truth.
Tickets at 35 PLN are available from the Rialto Cinema-Theatre box office. The show is for adults only.
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Ticket sale and reservation is available at the venues hosting a given performance, except for Bonds and Künstlerspiele. Scenes From the Great War ? for information and reservation, please send an e-mail. For the performance by Compagnie Mossoux-Bonté, early sale of tickets will be held by the Korez Theatre box office; in the Palace of Youth, ticket sale will start two hours before the performance. Tickets cost 15-35 PLN. Admission is free to open-air performances by the Theatre of the Eighth Day and A Part Theatre, as well as to the performance Body. To see Body, please reserve your seat by contacting the organisers by e-mail.
Festival production and organization: A Part Theatre Association
Project?s patron: Katowice City
Co-financed by the Katowice ? City of Gardens Krystyna Bochenek Culture Institute, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, and the Silesian Province Government
Partners: Rialto Cinema-Theatre in Katowice, Novotel Katowice Centrum, Palace of Youth in Katowice, Korez Theatre in Katowice, Rozrywki Theatre in Chorzów, University of Silesia in Katowice, Embassy of Israel in Warsaw, Le Générateur in Paris
Detailed information on performances: http://www.apart.art.pl/22fest.htm
