Warsaw: “Not only falling leaves swirl in the autumn” second leg of the 10th Zawirowania International Dance Theatre Festival

The 10th Zawirowania International Dance Theatre Festival comes in two instalments. The summer one featured mostly international acts, while the autumn part focuses on Polish productions, with a few foreign guests coming down to Warsaw as well. The festival will open with Tierra, a piece by Daniel Abreu, fascinating Spanish choreographer, who grew to become Zawirowania’s landmark. Israel is another country whose representatives are also frequent guests of the festival. This time we will see the duo of Ido Tadmor and Elwira Piorun in Rust and Engagé, choreographies by Tadmor and UK’s Rachel Erdos never before shown in Poland. A different portrait of Israel will be painted by Anat Grigorio in her dark piece Mr. Nice Guy. The international line-up also includes the Budapest Dance Theatre with My Daughter, Anna Frank ? a dance take on the moving, but deeply harrowing writings of the young Holocaust victim ? and Novatanz, a German collective testing organic and cultural implications of the heart beating in their tellingly titled Heart Beat.

The Polish presentations are extremely diverse. We will welcome the Sopot Dance Theatre, a rare guest in Warsaw, with Puste ciało. Okazja do malutkiej rozpaczy (Empty body. An occasion for a small despair), a choreography by Joanna Czajkowska and Jacek Krawczyk that gravitates around the works of Kafka and Toulouse-Loutrec to examine the relations between artistic personalities and the world, a theme tackled by the company in a few of their earlier productions. The festival will also see Poliamoria (Polyamory) by the Kraków Dance Theatre, in which Eryk Makohon and his dancers looks at the evolution of the romantic/erotic relationship in the course of the 21 century, critically examining the existing cultural models: to what extend are they grounded in our actual attributes and how much are they socially negotiated? Last but not least on the list of guests from outside of Warsaw the festival will welcome the Polish Dance Theatre with Hello, Stranger! by Paweł Malicki and Need me by Andrzej Adamczak. The Malicki’s piece is a brutal deconstruction of facade relationships between human individualities, while Adamczak’s work is an intimate duo exploring the multiplicity of facades found in one personality.

These are not, of course, all of Polish presentations. The festival’s host, celebrating its jubilee this year, will come up with a worthy showcase as well. Karolina Korczak will present a sample of her latest work-in-progress Wybieg, a taste of which was served at a press conference. Next up is a revival of long-not-seen Zbliżenia, a collaboration with Slovakia’s Tomáš Nepšinský. The revived version is different from the ones presented in Warsaw before. Previously, the male part was danced by Szymon Osiński and the choreographer in turns, while the female performers stayed the same. Now the role played by Karolina Korczak will be taken over by Magda Radłowska, while Korczak will replace Elwira Piorun. It is hard to write anything about Zawirowania’s finale performance as it is enigmatically described by the organisers as a birthday present and is thus listed on the programme.

Alongside the showcase, this autumn’s Zawirowania (which translates as “swirls” into English) will feature a choreographic competition: WarsawZAWIROWANIAdance. Out of eighty submissions (including less then ten Polish entries) the jury chose fourteen acts to be shown on 17 and 18 November, with a gala evening scheduled on 19 November. Apart from the jury’s awards, the contestants compete for an audience award and two disctinctions, which may prove very beneficial, if well-used: two selected etudes will be invited to international choreographic competitions collaborating with Zawirowania. One has to admit that it is a nice way to celebrate your birthday: not merely to bake an elegant cake and eat it with guests while fireworks flash around, but to use the opportunities developed over a decade to create a space where you can bake whole trays of cake together and treat everybody to it. Watch out for the swirling community in Warsaw soon!

Hanna Raszewska for taniecPOLSKA.pl, translated from Polish by IMIT

WarsawZAWIROWANIAdance

17?19 November 2014

Centre for Contemporary Art ? Ujazdowski Castle, Teatr WARSawy

10th Zawirowania International Dance Theatre Festival ? the autumn leg

18?23 November 2014

Collegium Nobilium Theatre, Teatr WARSawy, Teatr Wielki ? Polish National Opera

More info: www.zawirowania.pl