Photo: Milena Jesenska.
On 28-30 September (7 pm), the Dada von Bzdülöw Theatre will present the premiere of its latest piece ONE at the Wybrzeże Theatre (Black Hall). The presentation will mark the 51st Dada von Bzdülöw premiere since 1992. The previous Dada von Bzdülöw Theatre premiere, Today, Everything, summarized the first 25 years of the artistic research conducted by the company founded by Leszek Bzdyl and Katarzyna Chmielewska. The new opening has been developed by the younger generation of the Dada Theatre artists. ONE has been developed by Katarzyna Ustowska and Piotr Stanek ? known to the Gdańsk audience for their creations in Dada?s Enclave 4/7, INTRO and the aforementioned Today, Everything ? and by Katarzyna Kania, a student of choreography at the CuP in Giessen, as well as Patryk Durski, a graduate of the Bytom-based Dance Theatre Department of the AST National Academy of Theatre Arts in Cracow. ONE has been created under the artistic coaching of Katarzyna Chmielewska and Leszek Bzdyl.
The current state of our knowledge of the so-called reality suggests, rather reasonably, that the universe is made up of minute elementary particles and the so-called movement between them. The number of elementary particles is infinite. Which is to say, there is always one more. So what then? Well, then some particles conglutinate. And stay that way for a longer period of time. Galaxies, people, fruit. They are all more or less complex particulate lumps. You rarely think of yourselves this way because of the innate blockade within that prohibits you from verging towards such thoughts. Conceiving of yourself and the world as abstract particulate conglutinations may lead to inconvenient conclusions.
Norman Leto, Sailor
ONE begins with dance, and dance begins with an interaction of bodies, sounds, and objects. Bodies and objects, in turn, begin in their own corporeal ?collective.? The research conducted by the dancers concentrate on the creative and destructive collectivity and its dynamics, and the attained form facilitates play and the discovery of the capacities of the collective, as well as its boundaries. ONE is driven by incessant fascination: structuring and deconstruction, sense and nonsense, wholeness and the black hole. By toying with form, the piece balances the thin line between experimentation and entertainment. It is based on a poetic dialogue between the individual and the collective. Hidden in the spaces between the sounds, the dance, and the choreography are the questions: who are we, and how can we be together?
Tickets: PLN 20-30.
Concept and development: Katarzyna Kania, Katarzyna Ustowska, Patryk Durski i Piotr Stanek
Dramaturgy: Katarzyna Kania
Starring: Katarzyna Ustowska, Piotr Stanek, Patryk Durski
Music: Michał Drabczyk
Lighting design: Michał Kołodziej
Production: Dada von Bzdülöw Theatre Association, Wybrzeże Theatre in Gdańsk
Supported by the Gdańsk City Council
Katarzyna Ustowska graduated from the Gdańsk Ballet School (2008) and the University of Kent Northern School of Contemporary Dance (2012). She also holds an M.A. degree in contemporary dance education from the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts in Germany (2017). She collaborates with the Dada von Bzdülöw Theatre and the Trans-Atlantyk Theatre, and is the co-creator of the Polka dot Foundation in Gdańsk. An author of original pieces, she also creates artistic and educational projects in Poland and abroad. An author of an original dance education programme set in the Montessori pedagogy, she is a recipient of a scholarships of the Mayor of the City of Sopot and a winner of the Sopot Young Artists Prize.
Piotr Stanek graduated from the AST National Academy of Theatre Arts in Cracow, Dance Department in Bytom (2011). Since 2013, he has collaborated with the Dada von Bzdülöw Theatre. In the past few years, he has performed in pieces by Jerzy Stuhr Ubu Roi, Rafał Urbacki Jaram się, Jens van Daele Working Title: Ego, Jacek Łumiński?s Przejście, and in West Coast by Kuba Kowalski (Stefan Żeromski Dramatic Theatre in Kielce) and The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Remigiusz Brzyka (Juliusz Słowacki Theatre in Cracow). He is the recipient of the Audience Award in the Eurovision Young Dancers 2013 and the participant of two editions of the Deltebre Dansa Festival in Spain. He has contributed to numerous projects by other artists and created original pieces such Samsara, They Stole My Foldable Bike (Klub Żak in Gdańsk, Residency/Premiere 2014), Plan ewakuacji/Emergency Plan (created during his residency at the Kraków Choreographic Centre in 2015).
Katarzyna Kania is a student of the Master Program in Choreography and Performance at the Justus-Liebig University in Giessen, working under the supervision of Bojana Kunst (since 2016). In 2014 she graduated from the AST National Academy of Theatre Arts in Cracow, Dance Department in Bytom, where she currently works as a TA. She also studied in Tel Aviv (Kibbutzim College of Education) and Bratislava (VSMU). In 2012, she co-founded the Polish and German collective little:interference. An author of original pieces and artistic and educational projects, developed in collaboration with Polish and international artists, she has performed at international festivals such as the Dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Flora Theatre Festival in Olomouc, Baltic House Theatre Festival in St. Petersburg, and Deltebre Dansa in Spain. In 2017, she was awarded a ?Młoda Polska? scholarship from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, and a scholarship from the German DAAD programme.
Patryk Durski graduated from the AST Academy of Theatre Arts in Cracow, Dance Department in Bytom (2011). An independent artist, he has collaborated with Jens van Daele?s Burning Bridges. His recent projects explore the technologically borrowed interrelation of movement and sound, in which technology extends and widens the capacity of corporeal perception. He is also a contributor to the LineAct group, which blends conventional performative measures with the site-specific methodology and vertical dance.
Michał Drabczyk graduated from the department of sound engineering and musical production at the University of Wolverhampton in Great Britain, majoring in film and TV composition and mixing. He honed his skills in recording studios in Birmingham and worked as a producer for the Polish Tricity-based studios such as Humidor Records, Audioplanet, and the stop motion animation studio Trefl. He has also composed music to films produced by Studio Kadr, as well as the Łódź Film School and Gdynia Film School, and many other audiovisual forms. Working under the alias ?Michael Waren,? he is active on the Polish electronic scene as a producer and author of audiovisual live-acts.
Teatr Dada von Bzdülöw was founded in 1992 by director and choreographer Leszek Bzdyl, and dancer and choreographer Katarzyna Chmielewska, as an independent group of professional dancers and actors developing pieces in collaboration with Polish and foreign cultural institutions such as the Wybrzeże Theatre/Gdańsk; Klub Żak/ Gdańsk; Dance Advance/ Philadelphia, USA; Les Hivernales/ Avignon, France; Old Brewery/ Poznań; Nowy Theatre / Łódź; Fundacja Nuova /Poznań. Since 2008, the company has been represented by the Dada von Bzdülöw Theatre Association with a seat in Gdańsk, while also being affiliated at the Wybrzeże Theatre in Gdańsk, where it regularly stages all of its premieres and repertoire pieces. So far, the company has created 50 pieces that have been successfully presented in Poland and abroad. The current repertoire includes Today, Everything; INTRO; Why Don?t You Like Sadness; Strategy (Involuntary Reactivation).
