Malta Festival Poznań 2018: Premiere of No More Tears by Iwo Vedral and Krystyna Lama Szydłowska

The Polish Dance Theatre is pleased to invite everyone to the premiere of No More Tears directed by Iwo Vedral and choreographed by Krystyna Lama Szydłowska. The premiere presentation will take place as part of Malta Festival Poznań 2018 on 16 June 2018 (8 pm) at the Zamek Culture Centre in Poznań (ul. Św. Marcin 80/82), followed by a repeat performance on the following night (9 pm).

About the piece:

?No more tears? was the slogan of a shampoo advertised in early 1990s in Poland.

The beaming smile of Barbara Piasecka-Johnson, the owner of the corporation that marketed the said product, who visited Poland in June1989, built up hopes that the painful process of political transformation would also cause no tears.

Barbara ? a Polish woman with a charming smile (typically Polish or entirely American), an immigrant maid at a millionaire mansion, who went on to become one of the world?s richest women when she widowed the pharmaceutical tycoon Seward Johnson, forty years her senior, an art collector, philanthropist, benefactress of the Polish ?Solidarity? movement.

During the particularly harsh inheritance case at a New York court, she would famously leave the American lawyers flabbergasted with the description of a vision she had been supposed to have at fifteen:

?I am lying flat on a meadow, surrounded by clover. The clover is four-leaved. I am hungry, as is our entire family.

Suddenly I hear voices that order me to set out into the world and purchase great pieces of art in order to relieve the constrained Poland.?

As her private jet lands in Gdańsk in June 1989, the air is ripe with a sense of imminent change and religious yearning.

The then-famous healer Harris visits Poland , attracting huge crowds to his church séances.

Heads, hearts, stomachs ? there is plenty of organs to heal in Poland.

Summoned by the Polish pope, ?Your Spirit? renews the face of the earth.

Barbara walks into St. Brigid?s church in Gdańsk, arm in arm with Lech Wałęsa, accompanied by the patriotic song ?Boże coś Polskę,? and puts one hundred thousand the collection plate.

Polish zlotys? US Dollars? It does not matter to anyone. It seems evident that Virgin Mary herself has descended from the lapel pin of the leader of the ?Solidarity? and checked in at Heweliusz Hotel. Rumour has it she is about to purchase the Gdańsk Shipyard.

Gdańsk?s guardian angel, Polish Joan of Arc, scream the headlines, as Barbara?s portrait is hung on the gate of the shipyard right next to that of John Paul II?s.

?I just hope Poland will be prosperous as a whole,? says Barbara with her usual humility.

No more tears.

Healing Poland is not as easy as washing one?s hair with a shampoo.

In the end, Barbara does not buy the shipyard. Her investment in the supposedly miraculous, cancer-healing turf of dr Tołpa is equally unsuccessful.

Barbara?s ties with Poland also involve the idea of a great collection of paintings (to this goal, Barbara visits the ?Zamek? Culture Centre in Poznań), but like all other initiatives, the concept only amounts to mutual disappointment.

Barbara withdraws from Poland. She also withdraws from America. She soon moves to Assisi, hoping to draw inspiration from the life of St. Francis.

She does leave one indelible imprint on Poland, where she establishes a special centre for the revalidation and education of children and youth with autism in Gdańsk.

This seems to have been Barbara?s only reasonable investment throughout the period of her stay in the country. The money that has helped heal Polish autism to this day.

It is difficult to gloss over the irony implied in this withdrawal.

Barbara’s story embodied the American dream and the enflamed Polish religious yearning.

A hope for a miracle.

A visit of a healer.

A collective therapy.

An attempt to wake up.

A dream.

?I have lived in many places around the world, but my only place of permanent residence was the realm of my dreams, fantasies, and imagination,? she confessed in one of her last interviews..

direction: Iwo Vedral

choreography: Krystyna Lama Szydłowska

music: Dawid Dąbrowski

stage design, costumes: Paula Grocholska

dramaturgy: Michał Kurkowski

lighting design: Aleksander Prowaliński

video: Kuba Falkowski

performance and co-creation: Paulina Jaksim, Julia Hałka, Katarzyna Kulmińska, Sandra Szatan, Emily Wong, Żaneta Majcher, Maciej Cymorek, Jerzy Kaźmierczak, Zbigniew Kocięba, Michał Przybyła, Adrian Radwański, Dominik Więcek

graphic design: Piotr Zdanowicz

lighting: Przemysław Gapczyński

accompaniment: Zuzanna Majewska

production coordinator: Robert Chodyła

stage managers: Grzegorz Potocki, Andrzej Przybyszewski

The original concept of No More Tears won the nationwide competition Wieczór bosky (Divine Night) for the development of a premiere piece  as part of The Year of Gods 2018, organized by the Polish Dance Theatre.

Tickets at 15 PLN can be purchased at www.bilety24.pl, www.malta-festival.pl, and at the City Information Centre in Poznań (ul. Ratajczaka 44).

Authors? bios:

Iwo Vedral ? theatre director

A graduate of the Faculty of Theatre Studies at the Theatre Academy in Warsaw, and the Faculty of Drama Direction at the National Academy of Theatre Arts in Cracow, Iwo Vedral debuted with Szymon Wróblewski?s Puzzle, developed as part of the  Baz@rt Festival at the Stary Theatre in Cracow. He has directed such productions as Thomas Freyer?s Amoklauf, Mein Kinderspiel (Nowy Theatre in Cracow), Vladimir Sorokin?s Honeymoon (Norwid Theatre in Jelenia Góra), Martin Crimp?s Face to the Wall (Jaracz Theatre in Olsztyn), Solness based on Henrik Ibsen (Wybrzeże Theatre in Gdańsk, The Death of an Employee at the Polski Theatre in Poznań. His pieces have been presented at the Demoludy Festival in Olsztyn, Theatre Meetings in Lublin, and the World Premieres Festival in Bydgoszcz. His interpretation of Daniel Odija?s The Street at the Witkacy Nowy Theatre in Słupsk was awarded the Special Prize of the Marshal of the Pomorskie Province (2016). Vedral is also a two-time recipient of the scholarship of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

Krystyna Lama Szydłowska ? performer/choreographer/dancer/animator of culture/dance pedagogue

A graduate of the Poznan School of Social Sciences (composition and dance techniques), Krystyna Lama Szydłowska is a holder of the Alternative Dance Academy 2015 scholarship from the Art Stations Foundation by Grażyna Kulczyk. She is currently working towards a master?s degree in choreography at the Music Academy in Łódź. Always looking for new ways of self development and education, she combines many different disciplines, mainly in cooperation with musician Dawid Dąbrowski. Together with Zofia Tomczyk, she has co-founded the Kinestrefa Foundation to create and share what they already know. Personally and professionally, she has always been connected to Poznań, where she established a community centered around dance and performing arts. She looks for infinity in motion, but above she strives for a genuine stage presence. She loves sugar.

2018 The Year of Gods

The premiere of NO MORE TEARS is organised as part of The Year of Gods 2018 at the Polish Dance Theatre. The idea of the programme focuses on divine issues, figures, and symbols, in which the divinity of phenomena/figures is understood as custom or acclamation, social recognition or self-recognition. The Year of Gods 2018 is another instalment in the current programme (2016-2020) of the Polish Dance Theatre, whose slogan ?Polski/wielko-polski? aims to glorify Polish art.

Polish Dance Theatre at Malta Festival Poznań 2018:

16-17 June (8 pm):

No more tears, dir. Iwo Vedral (Polish Dance Theatre premiere), ?Zamek? Culture Centre

21 June (9 pm):

Polka, dir. Igor Gorzkowski, International Trade Fair, MP2

22 June (6pm):

Żniwa (Harvest), dir. Igor Gorzkowski, International Trade Fair, MP2

23 June (6 pm):

Wesele. Poprawiny (The Wedding: The After-Party), dir. M. Liber, International Trade Fair, MP2

24 June (6 pm)

Gorycz (Bitterness), dir. Kaya Kołodziejczyk, International Trade Fair, MP2

The performances by the Polish Dance Theatre will be held as part of the company?s partnership with Malta Festival Poznań 2018, titled Poznań na Malcie (Poznań at the Malta Festival), intended to showcase Poznań-based artists, companies, and cultural institutions.

Tickets at 15 PLN can be purchased at www.bilety24.pl, www.malta-festival.pl, and at the City Information Centre in Poznań (ul. Ratajczaka 44).

More information:  http://malta-festival.pl/pl