Maja Plisiecka w 2005 roku w Warszawie (Teatr Wielki – Opera Narodowa, XI Konkurs Eurowizji dla Młodych Tancerzy). Fot. archiwum prywatne Katarzyny Gardziny-Kubała.
On 8 May the Zamek Culture Centre and curator Anna Królica present the penultimate events of the spring edition of the performance art programme A Frog’s Perspective. At 7 pm Tatiana Kamieniecka will showcase her new piece Wieloryb (The Whale) at the Grand Hall (Sala Wielka). The inspiration behind this performance is the figure of yurodivy, a Russian version of the holy fool, epitomising an eccentric, a madman without status, family, money, position and… shame. Kamieniecka?s solo is a singular act of deconstruction of borderline corporeal experience and an attempt at approaching the hidden, unknown and intangible in human behaviour and body. The life of a saint, suspended between physiology and metaphysics of experience was an apotheosis of the desire to escape any homogeneity and obviousness of existence.
After the presentation, at 7:45 pm, Joanna Szymajda will give a lecture titled “The French Imaginarium: On Animal Motifs in Contemporary Dance”. Animal motifs may be present in dance either as an evocative element or as a vector of the philosophy of the body’s thinking. During the lecture I will discuss examples of both perspectives taken from French and Belgian choreography: from the sylphs, the faun, and the fantastic imaginarium of Philippe Decoulfé; to the political swans of Robin Orlin; to the canaries and butterflies of Jan Fabre. We will take concrete pieces and examine the role the elements taken from the animal world play in the work, analysing the wide array of possibilities that this world offers choreographers. Admission to the lecture is free.
About the piece:
The inspiration behind this performance is the figure of yurodivy, a Russian version of the holy fool, epitomising an eccentric, a madman without status, family, money, position and… shame. Kamieniecka?s solo is a singular act of deconstruction of borderline corporeal experience and an attempt at approaching the hidden, unknown and intangible in human behaviour and body. The life of a saint, suspended between physiology and metaphysics of experience was an apotheosis of the desire to escape any homogeneity and obviousness of existence. Following in the footsteps of the yurodivy, who through asceticism achieved bodilessness, the dancer tries to conduct a motoric experiment, which leads to the release of various energies and different states of presence. The artist has created a strange, crazy figure, whose body does not move and react in ?the human way?. The title whale is a pretext or rather a point of reference, a consistently traced thread of interpretation ? as an example of what is unknown and intangible in human behaviour and body.
“This is another performance which negotiates between the human and the animalistic. The choreographer derives her inspiration from the physicality of yurodivy (a figure well known in the Orthodox tradition), whom she perceives and situates between divinity and madness, eventually inscribing him into the animalistic frame. She has chosen to title her performance The Whale, in which she probably draws upon the Biblical tradition, referring to the internal transformation of prophet Jonah. The change took place during a journey inside a whale. This three-day journey became a time of encounter with his thoughts, a meeting with himself. The whale is treated as a symbol of dark human desires and attempts at self-betterment. The performance offers a conglomeration of several traditions, in which the choreographer combines corporeality, animalism, spirituality and insanity, taking a different route to contrive a system of references between the human and the animal element?, says Anna Królica, curator of the performing part of the programme A Frog?s Perspective.
choreographed and performed by: Tatiana Kamieniecka
artistic collaboration: Arkadi Zaides
music: Joanna Duda and Paweł Osicki
produced in collaboration with Klub Żak as part of Residency/Premiere 2011
Tickets: PLN 15; concessionary: PLN 10
The lecture will be preceded with Tatiana Kamieniecka’s piece Wieloryb(The Whale). Both events are part of the programme A Frog’s Perspective curated by Anna Królica.
The spring edition of A Frog’s Perspective will conclude on 30 May with a debate on Vegetarianism: New Sensitivity in A Rich World with the participation of Professor Jan Hartman and Professor Przemysław Czapliński, to be hosted by Krzysztof Hoffmann. The debate will be preceded with a vegetarian and vegan food fair and breakfast in front of the Zamek Culture Centre.
Read the curator’s text by Anna Królica
Anna Królica is a dance critic, historian and curator. She has recently published the book Pokolenie Solo. Choreografowie w rozmowach z Anną Królicą (The Solo Generation. Choreographers interviewed by Anna Królica; Cricoteka, Kraków 2013). She is also the author of a book on the latest history of contemporary dance in Poland, Sztuka do odkrycia. Szkice o polskim tańcu (An Art to Discover. Essays on Polish Dance; Tarnów, 2011). In 2012 she received a scholarship for the Minister of Culture and National Heritage of Poland. She is the curator of the following programmes: Maszyna choreograficzna in Cricoteca (Choreographic Machine; since 2013), Z perspektywy żaby (A Frog’s Perspective) at the Zamek Culture Centre in Poznań (2015), Goodbye, Superman! (together with Eryk Makohon and Paweł Łyskawa, Cracow 2015), Portrety. Kobiety w polskiej choreografii (Portraits. Women in Polish Choreography; 2014), Archiwum Ciała (Archive of the Body) w at the Zamek Culture Centre (2013). In 2011 she programmed the Kalejdoskop (Kaleidoscope) festival in Białystok and has been involved with the event ever since. She sat on the jury of the Polish Dance Platform in 2008 and 2012 and chaired the programming board of the Institute of Music and Dance in Warsaw in 2011-2014. In 2010 she was the main artistic coordinator of the 1st Dance Congress in Warsaw. Together with Witold Mrozek she set up and run a website on contemporary dance, www.nowytaniec.pl in 2006-2011.
Joanna Szymajda is a deputy director of the Institute of Music and Dance in Warsaw. The holds a PhD from Université Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle and the University of Łódź. Her doctoral thesis was devoted to “The aesthetics of European contemporary dance after 1990. She holds MA degrees in theatre studies and psychology from the University of Łódź and Université Lyon II. She has written academic and critical pieces on contemporary dance and curated dance projects, e.g. as part of the Dialogue of Four Cultures Festival. She was an artistic coordinator of the Body/Mind International Contemporary Dance Festival.
