Pictured: Renata Piotrowska-Auffret “Death. Excercises and variations”. Photo: Marta Ankiersztejn.
As part of the 6th instalment of the EXPRESSIONS programme implemented by the Centre for Dance Art in Warsaw, on Wednesday, 30 November, the Mazovia Institute of Culture (ul. Elektoralna 12) will host a presentation of two pieces. At 7 pm, Renata Piotrowska-Auffret will show her Death. Exercises and variations. The special presentation will feature a guest performance from Maria Stokłosa. Piotrowska-Auffret?s performance uses distance and humour to confront the experience of death with theatre, echoing Peggy Phelan?s notion of the theatre as a place in which society ?rehearses for loss, and especially for death?.
At 8.30 pm, Kaya Kołodziejczyk, Małgorzata Haduch, Ilona Trybuła, Paweł Grala will present Mazurkas, accompanied by the pianist and composer Marcin Masecki.
More on the presentations:
Death. Exercises and variations
Death is one thing that cannot be experienced. It is an irreversible event from which one doesn?t come back. Piotrowska-Auffret?s solo Death. Exercises and variations embodies this rehearsal quite literally. As she attempts to stage the encounter with death, she goes through different scenarios making up a performative diptych that travels through centuries of (in)experience with death while she draws on its artistic, cultural and social representations.
Based on the observations that the contemporary body aspires to defy dying more then ever, and that the omnipresence of death in the media is conversed by its evacuation from our everyday lives, she turns to some historical hallmarks associated with the issues of death and dying, such as dance macabre, ritualistic repetition, personification, violence, exhaustion, gore or eroticism.Choreographing it as an elusive partner through its many faces, Piotrowska-Auffret is trying to track our understanding (or lack thereof)of death today.
concept, choreography: Renata Piotrowska-Auffret
performance: Maria Stokłosa
dramaturgy: Bojana Bauer
lighting: Ewa Garniec
production: Burdąg Foundation
partners: Centrum w Ruchu (Warsaw), Wawerskie Centrum Kultury (Warsaw), Centre for Contemporary Art ? Laboratory (Warsaw), Centre national de la danse in Paris, La Briqueterie ? CDC du Val-de-Marne, Soho Theatre (Warsaw), STSpot (Yokohama), Art Stations Foundation (Poznań)
Premiere: October 2014
Special thanks to Michał Kurkowski, Joanna Leśnierowska, Ula Zerek and the Ochoty Theatre of Warsaw.
Mazurkas
From the artists: Marcin Masecki performs improvised mazurkas, referring to the traditional music form; we, the dancers, improvise with the mazurkas based on the traditional dance form. We jump into the mazurkas, confronting them with our contemporary experience of dance, choreography, the body, thinking, and intuition. In our Mazurkas, independence and the present meet with history. Their meeting is a pleasant, deep breath.
On the days of the presentations, the organisers will also hold dance workshops.
Tickets (PLN 20, valid for both presentations) can be purchased at the Mazovia Institute of Culture cash desk and online at http://bilety.mik.waw.pl/
More on individual performances and workshops:
http://centrumsztukitanca.org,
http://facebook.com/cstwarszawa
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From September to December 2016, the Mazovia Centre for Culture and Art will host the Centre for Dance Art?s program EKSPRESJE [EXPRESSIONS]. The project will feature dance performances, workshops, exhibitions and debates. EXPRESSIONS is a regular presentation and promotion of Warsaw-based artists active in dance ? both its household names and dancers and choreographers who have recently launched their careers.
The Centre for Dance Art in Warsaw is a pilot program intended to build a fixed venue for contemporary dance and related arts. The general vision of the project has been developed in the course of consultations and a consolidation of the dance community by the Social Dialogue Committee for Dance, and its implementation has been delegated to three organisations representing the Warsaw dance milieu: the ART_committed Foundation, the PERFORM Art Foundation, and the NEW WAVE Theatre Development Foundation.
Project Partner: Mazovia Centre for Culture and Art.
EXPRESSIONS is organised by the Centre for Dance Art in Warsaw, an association of NGO dance organizations.
Financed by the Capital City of Warsaw.
