Magdalena Jędra, les pas Jaques. Photo: Maciek Salamon.
Concluding the regular presentations of the Warsaw Dance Stage 2013, on Thursday, 6 June (7 pm) the Centre for Contemporary Art – Ujazdowski Castle (Laboratory Building) will be hosting for the first time artists from outside of Warsaw, namely from Tricity. It has already been 8 years since Magda Jędra and Anna Steller debuted in Warsaw together with the Good Girl Killer collective. The group came to life at the beginning of 2005 on the initiative of young creative artists: Magda Jędra, Zbigniew Bieńkowski, Anna Steller, Grzegorz Welizarowicz, Jarosław (Max) Szwoch. A few months later the group presented their first project at the Body/Mind Festival [Festiwal Ciało/Umysł] at the now non-existent Club Le Madame in Warsaw. Bringing together dance, music and visual elements, the project Good Girl Killer was the group’s artistic manifesto. Eclectic form and matter is the characteristic feature of the group’s style: the artists consciously act to blur the boundaries between dance, music and video art. Today Magda Jędra and Anna Steller are coming back to Warsaw to present their individual works, if on the same stage. Although they both have successfully developed productions in association with choreographers as well as musicians, directors, and visual artists, and produced performances with rich settings, their latest projects give preference to minimalism. Strongly subjected to form and precise movements, the two productions will unveil a new face of the Tricity artists.
Warsaw Dance Stage 2013 will end with the Warsaw Dance Night (29 November/ Centre for Contemporary Art – Ujazdowski Castle).
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Each performance lasts about 40 minutes and contains nude scenes.
Le pas Jaquesor “Jacques’ steps” refers to the eurhythmics teaching technique developed by Swiss teacher Emile Jaques-Dalcroze. Movement and rhythm are a straightforward metaphor of passing time and were the starting point for the artist in this project. Yet the real subject of Jędra’s solo is violence, auto aggression…, as well as helplessness in the face of the methods and strategies of creating a new dance.
Concept, choreography, performance: Magda Jędra
Cooperation: Anita Wach, Mariusz Krawczyk
Music: collage
Production: Good Girl Killer
Premiere: 3 December 2011, Gdańsk
The project was supported by the regional authorities of Pomorze and the Gdańsk city hall.
Przemieszczenie, or transportation, is defined by cultural anthropologist Richard Schechner as the process in which one enters an emotion, is moved or touched by it, then “abandoned” in more or less the same place where one has taken off. In her performance, Anna Steller refers to the events of her past and present trying to face up to them using a different perspective in order to experience the state of elation, balance on the verge of the real and the superficial, to be in a trance and to be herself at the same time, become one with the audience and entertain them all at once. The dancer is accompanied by visual artist and musician Adam Witkowski.
Concept and performance: Anna Steller
Music and performance: Adam Witkowski
Costume: Julia Porańska
Video: Maciek Salamon
Premiere: 3 November 2012 CSW ŁAŹNIA, Gdańsk
The project was produced thanks to scholarships from the Minister of Culture and national Heritage and the mayor of Gdańsk.
