Photo: Maciej Zakrzewski.
The Sibiu International Theatre Festival in Romania is one of the best-known art events in Europe. Apart from the Polish Dance Theatre (PTT), this year the showcase will also feature the legendary Batsheva Dance Company of Israel, among other artists. The programme abounds in concerts, open-air performances, and workshops to be attended by artists from across the world.
The festival will be taking place from 6 to 15 June 2014. The PTT will go on the stage on day one with Forty, a choreography created by Norway?s Jo Str?mgren to celebrate the company?s ten years of existence last year. The Poznań-based company is travelling to Romania as part of Budzik kulturalny: projekt działań promujących i aktywizujących kulturę Wielkopolski, a programme promoting the culture and arts of the region of Wielkopolska, supported by the European Regional Development Fund.
About the performance:
In the words of its creator, the piece follows a life of a certain woman from the moment she was born in 1973 to her birthday in 2013. These four decades reflect the time of doubts, hopes, struggle, choices and unpredictable events, guided by heroic virtues ? lust for life and will to survive. In this trip through chaotic Europe the main protagonist succeeds to find a compromise between own ambitions and circumstances that are forced upon her. The many layers of the performance portray not only individual strivings of one person but also become a synonym of a journey of a country and a dance theatre. Poland went through some radical changes within the last forty years ? what are her future prospects? The 40th anniversary of the Polish Dance Theatre raises the same question. As an artwork, the performance does not delve into facts and figures. A fictive viewpoint, and even the view of an outsider, may just as well provide the necessary distance to communicate on an associative level. The truth is never the truth anyway, it?s all a matter of which details you emphasize, ignore or exaggerate.
The production features untypical narration for a Polish Dance Theatre piece. Its creator is known to be not only a choreographer but also a dramaturge, film and theatre director.
Life is like a book, they say. But life is not a book. Life is written on thousands of loose sheets. You can tell a story, yes, and say this story is the truth. But it?s a matter of choice, really. Of deciding which papers in which order. Our story is one of these.
Jo Str?mgren
Tickets are available from the Polish Dance Theatre?s impresario?s offices and http://zaproszenia.ptt-poznan.pl/.
World premiere: 15 and 16 June 2013 in Poznan, Zamek Culture Centre
Direction, choreography, stage design: Jo Str?mgren
Lighting director: Hans J. Skogen
Costumes: Bregje van Balen
Music: Jo Str?mgren, Viljo Vesterinen, George Brassens, Fryderyk Chopin, Giacomo Puccini, Francisco Tarrega, Serge Gainsbourg, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Antonio Vivaldi, Norbert Gabla, Ronan Hardiman, Ich Troje, Astor Piazzolla, Alfredo Catalani, Eleni Karaindrou, Lars ?rdal
Jo Str?mgren, born 1970 in Trondheim, Norway, was educated in classical ballet and worked some years as a contemporary dancer before an injury made him pursue a multi-disciplinary creative career. As a freelance choreographer he is frequently engaged by ballet companies, such as Wiener Staatsopernballet, The Royal Danish Ballet, Staatsoper Nürnberg Ballet, Gothenburg Ballet, Ballet de l’Opera National du Rhin, Royal Swedish Ballet, and others. He is currently the Associated Choreographer at the Norwegian National Ballet. He has also created numerous contemporary dance pieces for companies like Cedar Lake Dance Company, Danish Dance Theatre, Carte Blanche Dance Company, Cloud Gate Ensemble, Scottish Dance Theatre, Helsinki Dance Company, Repertory Dance Theatre Utah, Iceland Dance Company, Bern Ballet, Staatsheater am Gärtnerplatz München, Staatstheater Braunschweig, and many others. As a theatre director he has a special love for Henrik Ibsen plays, and is predominantly engaged in the Nordic region, such as The Norwegian National Theatre, The Royal Danish Theatre, Reykjavik City Theatre, The National Theatre of Bergen, Malmö City Theatre, and others. More international engagements are as diverse as Philadelphia Live Arts and the Pushkin Theatre in Moscow. As a playwright he has had about 15 plays produced at different institutional theatres. And finally, he is temporarily involved with film direction. His first feature film ?Destination Moscow? came in 2003. His dance film ?The Neighbour? won the prestigious Rose d?Or in Lausanne in 2010. Jo Str?mgren?s activity on the international arena is vast ? in 2013 a total of 20 different productions are performed and toured around the world.
The performance is being created as part of the project ?Signs of time – to overcome borders. Artistic and educational activities in Poland, Norway and Iceland? within the framework of “Promotion Of Diversity In Culture And Arts Within European Cultural Heritage” programme (EEA 2009-2014 Financial Mechanism).
Supported by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
Ambassador of the Wielkopolska Region?s Culture as part of Budzik kulturalny: projekt działań promujących i aktywizujących kulturę Wielkopolski [Cultural Alarm Clock: Actions Promoting and Activating the Culture of Wielkopolska] supported by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund.
Supported by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund as part of the Wielkopolska Regional Operational Programme 2007-2013.
