Pictured: Happiness/ Photo: Kelis.
The interdisciplinary festival International Meeting of Live Arts CROSSROADS (organised every year since 1994) presents valuable, innovative performances at the crossroads between theatre, dance and visual arts. Eminent artists from abroad (who might not be known in Poland) have been invited to participate in the festival. The works of foreign artists are confronted with the works of Polish artists who explore the same area of artistic research. For the past 22 years, the festival has featured artists from 16 countries, among them: the Dance Theatre of Pina Bausch from Germany, singer and performer Meredith Monk from the United States and dancer Kazuo Ohno from Japan. About 50 thousand spectators have attended the events within the framework of the festival.
The 23rd edition of the CROSSROADS Festival, held from 25 October till 8 November 2016, will include presentations on the verge of contemporary dance and theatre which integrate choreography and acting with dedicated music scores, as well as pieces combining theatre and film animation. The performances were created byartists from Netherlands and Poland. The presented pieces stand out in their original form and power of expression achieved by intense interaction between dance, music, animation and soundtrack.
The festival will feature performances by the internationally acclaimed, unique animation theatre Hotel Modern and Arthur Sauer of Rotterdam; the Groningen-based contemporary dance company Club Guy & Roni whose performances alongside the world-renowned Slagwerk den Haag ensemble have taken Europe by storm; the Warsaw-based animation theatre company Unia Teatr Niemożliwy who, despite their international success, remain largely obscure at home; and, last but not least, Poland?s top contemporary dance company Dada von Bzdülöw Theatre of Gdańsk. The festival is curated by Janusz Marek.
About the performances:
Hotel Modern theatre and Artur Sauer of Rotterdam, widely acclaimed in Europe, will perform for the first time in Warsaw. The group will show a moving and multiple award-winning performance called De Grote Oorlog?(The Great War) from 2001. While watching this animated performance, the audience also becomes a witness of a live animation film ? a kind of ?documentary? from the trenches of World War I. Thanks to authentic letters written by soldiers during the war, and images from trenches filmed with minicameras, the horror and absurd of war will be brought to individual human dimension.
Hotel Modern theatre is lead by visual artist Herman Helle and actresses Pauline Kalker and Arlene Hoornweg. In ?The Great War? they also collaborated with sound artist Arthur Sauer, a composer of live created soundtrack. De Grote Oorlog(The Great War) will be presented twice at the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle.
The festival will feature two presentations of Drugi pokój ? impresja według Zbigniewa Herberta [Second room ? An Impression After Zbigniew Herbert] by Warsaw?s Unia Teatr Niemożliwy. The presentations will be hosted by the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle. Produced in 2008, the piece was directed by Dorota Anna Dębek, with music by Grzegorz Małkowski and visuals by Tomasz Taracha. A theatrical version of Herbert?s radio play combines captivating visual effects with a shadow play and an original score. The original form of the piece (rarely performed in Warsaw) facilitates the presentation of a panorama of human attitudes. Still, the piece leaves no room for psychological individuation. The voices of the invisible characters and the vague human silhouettes passing before the audience intensify the atmosphere of the horror of a neighborly tragedy.
Unia Teatr Niemożliwy is an association of artists working in different fields of art, most of whom delve into puppet theater for adults. The company is also the organizer of the acclaimed International Festival Puppet Theatre and Film Animation for Adults Festival ?Puppets Are People, Too?.
Contemporary dance company Club Guy & Roni from Groningen will also perform in Warsaw for the first time. The group is lead by choreographers Guy Weizman and Roni Haver, and it has met with great appreciation of audiences in many European theatres and festivals, eg. in Paris, Berlin, Rome, Madrid, Marseille, Barcelona and at the prestigious Jacob?s Pillow Festival in the United States. The international cast of Club Guy&Roni includes Polish dancer Igor Podsiadły, winner of the ?Swan? award for the best dancer of contemporary dance in the Netherlands in 2014 for a part in ?Naked Lunch? performance.
Happiness is the latest performance of the international contemporary dance company Club Guy & Roni and the percussion ensemble Slagwerk Den Haag; its premiere took place earlier this year.In their characteristically dynamic way and with a grain of salt they portray characters who are far from ideal in their search for happiness. Does one have to be lucky to experience true Happiness? ? they ask. Inspired by Todd Solondz?s film Happiness, the performance is an explosive mix of absurd, bittersweet comedy and expressive dancing to compelling live music. The performance was created by Guy Weizman and Roni Haver, renowned Israeli choreographers working in the Netherlands, as well as composers Frank Wienk (Binkbeats, Slagwerk Den Haag) and Niels Broos (Kyteman Orchestra).
To celebrate/mark the 100th anniversary of the emanation of the Dada movement, the group led by Leszek Bzdyl will present their grotesque play INTRO with music composed by postpunk band Nagrobki (Maciej Salamon and Adam Witkowski) at the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle. The 2015 performance, directed by the founders of the company, ridicules Polish stereotypes, myths and phobias. INTRO sees Dada von Bzdülöw shout desperately, ?Dada is Polska!!!?. ?An absurd, desacrating black humour which does not spare anything from ridicule, INTRO resonates stronger than any scholarly discussions, no matter how filled with reasonable arguments. A tangle of red and white symbols, sharp sounds of vuvuzelas, explosives, green-legged partridges, and demonic Muslim women tells us to find a distance lost in the present reality. It is also a provocation for provocation?s own sake, in the grain of the uninhibited Dadaist imagination. Because INTRO is above all a challenge to our myths.? (Anna Jazgarska, teatralny.pl)
PROGRAMME
25 October, 6 pm, CCA Ujazdowski Castle
Lecture on Hotel Modern and Artur Sauer of Rotterdam lead by Pauline Kalker
26 October, 7 pm, CCA Ujazdowski Castle
27 October 6 pm, CCA Ujazdowski Castle
Performance De grote Oorlog (The Great War) by Hotel Modern and Arthur Sauer of Rotterdam.
2 November, 6 pm, CCA Ujazdowski Castle
Lecture on the work of contemporary dance company Club Guy & Roni by Guy Weizman or Roni Haver
3 November, 7 pm, Nowy Teatr International Cultural Centre
5 and 6 November, 7 pm, CCA Ujazdowski Castle
8 November, 6 pm & 8.30 pm, CCA Ujazdowski Castle
Information about the Festival: www.csw.art.pl, www.facebook.com/cswzu
and tel. 22 628 12 71-3 ext. 135.
Information about Happiness performance: www.nowyteatr.org and tel. 22 3793333.
Tickets for the Hotel Modern theatre, Unia Teatr Niemożliwy group and Dada von Bzdülöw Theatre performances will sold at the CCA Ujazdowski Castle (ul. Jazdów 2).
Tickets for the Club Guy & Roni dance company and Slagwerk Den Haag group performance will be sold at the Nowy Teatr International Cultural Centre ( ul. Madalińskiego 10/16).
Organisers:
Partner of the presentation of Happiness performance: The Nowy Teatr International Cultural Centre.
Partner of the Festival: Qchnia Artystyczna.
CROSSROADS Festival is co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, City of Warsaw and the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
