Photo: Organisers.
The Body/Mind Foundation is pleased to invite everyone to the finale of the first season of the Performing Europe 2020 project. December will see the Polish premiere of Alessandro Sciarroni?s Aurora, an open goalball workshop, and a film screening. Admission to all events is free upon prior reservation.
Performing Europe 2020 is a four-year international project developed simultaneously in 10 European countries and Lebanon. The project highlights the role of theatre as the mainstay of meetings and exchange through the introduction of new modes of presentations and art-oriented projects. The Body/Mind Foundation wishes to invite everyone to the finale of the first edition of this undertaking.
On 12 December (7 pm), Nowy Theatre will host the Polish premiere of Aurora, the final piece in the trilogy Will you still love me tomorrow?, a project that explores the notions of resistance, tension, and concentration. Developed by Alessandro Sciarroni, an Italian performer, choreographer and director whose body of work has been presented at dance and theatre festivals, museums and art galleries in over 20 countries, including Poland.
– Alessandro Sciarroni returns to Warsaw following the exquisite reception of the second part of the Will you still love me tomorrow? trilogy by the audience of the 2014 Body/Mind Festival, says Edyta Kozak, curator of the project and president of the Body/Mind Foundation. In Aurora, the audience will participate in an actual goalball game, reconstructed on stage and performed by blind and visually impaired athletes. Transposing authentic activities into the space of Nowy Teatr, Sciarroni provokes one to reflect on sports and disabilities, and the passing of time, adds Kozak.
Goalball is a mixture of handball and football. Contestants play on two opposing teams, three players on each team. Their aim is to put a ball supplied with a little bell into special goals. The attackers can only use their hands, while the defending team is allowed to use their whole bodies to protect their goal area. All actors-athletes wear masks, levelling the chances of the blind and the visually impaired.
– This exceptional discipline lent Alessandro Sciarroni?s piece a dramatic structure that is based both on vivid images and the circulation of sounds, says Edyta Kozak. The fact that the players can?t see, combined with the fascination incited by an unknown sport, engages the audience and inspires empathy. This emotion culminates at halftime, when the lighting gradually fades out, leaving the audience in pitch darkness, adds Kozak.
Following the presentation, the audience will participate in the screening of Cosimo Terlizzi?s film Aurora ? a creative process. The director peeks into the creative process behind the transgressive Aurora, talking to its choreographer, Alessandro Sciarroni, and to those who perform the piece, i.e. visually impaired athletes who have swapped the pitch for the stage in order to probe into the unknown regions of art.
On the preceding night (11 December, 7-10 pm), the authors of the performance will host an open workshop in goalball technique. Admission to the workshop is free upon prior registration (bow@cialoumysl.pl).
PERFORMING EUROPE 2020 features 36 artists representing the Old Continent and the Arab World. They represent different experience, aesthetics, practices and techniques, operational contexts, and career stages. What binds them together is their investment in social and political reality, and their willingness to translate those experiences into stage language, says Edyta Kozak. The group includes four Polish artists: Wojtek Blecharz, Marta Górnicka, Ramona Nagabczyńska, and Karol Tymiński. In the first season, the Polish audience was introduced to Wojtek Blechacz?s Body-Opera Wojtka Blecharza and Christina Ciupke?s To dance, while also being able to participate in Ramona Nagabczyńska?s work in progress workshops for More/Morus (Więcej). The Nowy Teatr foyer additionally played host to Kiosk in Motion, an interactive artistic installation provoking questions and seeking answers to the question of the significance of dance and its place in contemporary culture.
Admission to the events presented as part of the first season of PERFORMING EUROPE 2020 is free of charge upon collection of free entrance cards at the Nowy Teatr box office (ul. Madalińskiego 10/16).
Schedule:
Open-access goalball workshop
11 December, 7-10 pm – Nowy Theatre, main stage
Reservations at: bow@cialoumysl.pl
Aurora ? a piece by Alessandro Sciarroni
12 December, 7-8 pm – Nowy Theatre, main stage
Aurora ? a creative process ? Cosimo Terlizzi?s film screening
12 December, 8-8:50 pm – Nowy Theatre, foyer
PERFORMING EUROPE season 1.
Curator: Edyta Kozak
Organiser: Body/Mind Foundation
Co-organiser: Nowy Teatr
Media Patrons: TVP Kultura, Radio Dla Ciebie, Aktivist, Taniecpolska.pl, Warszawa.pl, Mowianamiescie.pl
Developed by the Body/Mind Foundation as part of the PERFORMING EUROPE 2020 project co-financed by European Union?s Creative Europe ? apap (Advancing Performing Arts Project), the Capital City of Warsaw, and the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland.
More information on the Performing Europe 2020 events at: www.cialoumysl.pl
