Pictured: “The Cherry Orchard”. Photo: Koen Broos.
The programme of the 23rd Kontakt International Theatre Festival in Toruń, which is held every two years since 2012, includes two movement and dance performances. On Tuesday 24 May at 8:30pm the festival organiser, the Wilam Horzyca Theatre (1 Teatralny Sq.), will host a performance The Cherry Orchard by Antwerp-based group Tg STAN (Stop Thinking About Names). This is the group?s sixth work inspired by Anton Chekhov?s works.
The festival finale on Saturday 28 May at 6 pm (additional show on 29 May at 6 pm) at the CKK Jordanki culture and congress centre (1-3 Solidarności Ave.) will feature Father, a performance by Peeping Tom, a Dutch-Belgian group from Brussels. This warm and humorous story is set in a retirement home, somewhere deep in the cellar, with a single window located so high that it is impossible to look through it or open it. It seems to symbolize the disappearing border between life and death. This is a space somewhere between the worlds of the living and the dead. Isabelle von Neumann-Cosel wrote that this story is so surreal, cruel, sensitive and deep, it cannot be overlooked in contemporary dance.
About the performances
STAN (Antwerp, Belgium)
Anton Czekhov: The Cherry Orchard
After Uncle Vanya, Ivanov, Three Sisters, Platonov and A Marriage Proposal, STAN is presenting another Chekhov play. ?The next play I write will definitely be funny, very funny, at least in intention?, wrote Chekhov in a letter to his future wife Olga Knipper. The artists explain their interest in Czekhov: ?Anton Pavlovich Chekhov has left an indelible stamp on the history of theatre, and his prose, letters, and plays are still among the finest in world literature. His grasp of man?s innermost feelings is unparalleled, his insight into human behaviour unequalled. He will forever belong to that small group of authors who are essential to our quest as human beings, whose perspicacity can continue to help us preserve or recover our individual and collective mental health?.
STAN presents its performances in many countries, including in France, Spain, Portugal, Norway, Japan, Brazil and the United States.
Duration: 2 hours 20 min. (no intervals)
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Peeping Tom (Netherlands/Belgium)
Father
Director: Franck Chartier
Dramaturgy: Gabriela Carrizo
This warm and humorous story is set in a deep cellar of a retirement home, with a single window located so high that it is impossible to look through it or open it. It seems to be a symbol of the fading border between life and death. This is a space somewhere between the worlds of the living and the dead. Time seems to slow down for elderly people, so as to correspond to the lagging rhythm of their gestures; articulate speech is perceived as babble and music as noise; the world itself seems to make sense only when it is the embodiment of a memory or a projection of the mind.
With poignancy and wit, Father explores the process of disintegration of mental faculties, depicting the moment when the imagination or illness of the old man, a contemporary Don Quixote, threatens to push the reality of everyday life into the embrace of a hallucinated world.
?Toruń has never seen such a performance. Wise, witty, serious, but with a large dose of humour. To present it to the largest possible audience, the organisers offer two shows?.
Duration: 1 hour 30 min. (no intervals)
Detailed information on the performances and artists, and excerpts from critical reviews can be found in the festival catalogue available at
http://teatr.torun.pl/folder-festiwalowy-pl-eng/
