Photo: Patrycja Płanik.
Dancer and choreographer Mikołaj Mikołajczyk received the Honorary Award for Merit to Polish Culture on 21 June 2016 during a gala marking 80 years of the Polish House in Zakrzewo. The award is bestowed by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage for prominent achievements as regards the artistic creation as well as preservation and promotion of culture.
Mikołajczyk, who celebrates 25 years of artistic career this year, also received a congratulatory letter from the Marshal of the Wielkopolskie Province.
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Mikołaj Mikołajczyk graduated from the State Ballet School in Poznań, Poland. In the course of his career he has worked with the Wrocław Mime Theatre, Polish Dance Theatre in Poznań, the Poznań Opera House, the Badisches Staatstheater in Karlsruhe, and Opera na Zamku, the Szczecin opera house, where he led a ballet company that morphed into the DNA Theatre ? dance encoded in genes.
He has collaborated with: Henryk Tomaszewski, Mats Ek, Birgitt Cullberg, Ewa Wycichowska, Conrad Drzewiecki, Emil Wesołowski, Przemysław Śliwa, and such dramatic theatre directors as Maja Kleczewska, Małgorzata Dziewulska, Natalia Korczakowska, Michał Borczuch, or Krystyna Meissner.
He has performed at numerous festivals at home and abroad: in Edinburg, Sofia, Lill, Carcassone, Berlin, Hamamatsu, Xanten, Luxembourg, Bruxelles, Brugge, Kaunas, Bucharest, Warsaw, Poznań, Łódź, Cracow, and Lublin. He has co-organised dance workshops and festivals such as the Summer Artistic Meetings in Kutno, Poland; Ballet Summer in Lądek Zdrój, Poland; dance workshops in Sieradź and Szczecin, Poland. He has led workshops held by the Institute of Music and Dance in Warsaw as part of the programme “Thought in Motion” in Zakrzewo and Zduńska Wola.
Having left work with ballet companies, Mikołajczyk developed three solos: Waiting (2006), Z Tobąchcęoglądaćświat (I Want to Watch the World with You; 2008), and Plaisir d’amour (2011), which make up an autobiographical triptych that is one of the most prominent Polish dance pieces.
Among his other significant projects are: Kronika zapowiedzianej śmierci (A Chronicle of Foreseen Death; 2003); Faust ? zdarzenie wg Marlowe?a/Grotowskiego (Faustus: An Event After Marlowe/Grotowski; 2009), PoLY-RHY-tm (Spring Festival, Poznań, 2009); WSZYSTKO JUTRO, czyli lalki wybawione (Everything Tomorrow, or dolls salvaged) based on Theorem by Pier Paolo Pasolini (2010); Projekt: Tomaszewski (RE//MIX series by Komuna//Warszawa, 2012); Projekt Lutosławski?Jesteśkimś, kogo kiedyśznałem (Project Lutosławski ? You are somebody I used to know; 2013).
In September 2012 the choreographer started working with the seniors of the Wrzos choir in Zakrzewo and the local Polish House. The collaboration, continuing to this day, brought about the Zakrzewo Trilogy: Teraz jest czas (Now Is The Time); Projekt. Noce i dnie (Project. Nights and Days); and Projekt Jezioro łabędzie (Project Swan Lake). The first two parts were developed as part of the project Wielkopolska: Revolutions; the last one was produced by the Polish House.
