Performance “Wall with a view” | Poland
Creators: Grupa Coincidentia
Text: Robert Jarosz
Direction and scenography: Konrad Dworakowski
Music: Robert Jurčo
Multimedia: Sebastian Łukaszuk, Konrad Dworakowski
Scenography cooperation: Małgorzata Tarasewicz-Wosik
Pedagogical consultations: Mariola Wojtkiewicz
Visual workshops: Martyna Dworakowska
Light: Bogusław Kasperuk
Cast: Dagmara Sowa (Orso), Paweł Chomczyk (Kuba), Krystian Chomczyk (Dziecko) Robert Jurčo, Konrad Dworakowski (live music)
The performance of Grupa Coincidentia (Coincidentia Group) - the prize-winner of the Artistic Event for Children and Youth Project, was carried out in cooperation with Children's Art Centre in Poznań under the auspices of 23rd Biennale of the Art for Children - An encounter is art. The project is financed by The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage from the Culture Promotion Fund, Children’s Art Centre in Poznań and the City of Białystok.
Premiere: January 10, 2021
Date: 27.08.2023 / Sunday
Time: 5 pm
Place: Stage in Art_Inkubator in Art Factory in Lodz
Tickets: 35 PLN (reduced) / 45 PLN (regular)
Tickets purchase: from July 21, 2023 / via kicket.com portal (online payment) / at the festival office (payment in cash and by card)
Duration: 80 minutes (no intermissions)
Viewers' age: 12+
Performance in Polish.
After the event we invite the viewers to a meeting and discussion with the artists.
The discussion will be held in Polish.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PERFORMANCE
Closeness, tenderness, presence. All those notions that are important for each and every one of us, necessary to establish relationships and a safe vision of the world, at one quick point ended up in oppression. We have barely managed to utter those, we have got to like them and we have just lost them out of our sight due to being closed and increasingly lonely. Or perhaps the emptiness that we feel has always been there but it’s only now that we can see it more vividly, don’t we? We look for new notions, we redefine others.
In the play “The wall with a view” we try to do that with the help of a metaphor and the presumption that it will help us understand the world better. By employing the materials used as creative aids during workshops with children and youth, we create a model that is poetically transposed to micro and macro realities. The world of Kuba, the main protagonist of the performance, is a universe that could be closed in a small aquarium and at the same time cannot be contained in regular boundaries. Loneliness is the loneliness of a single child as well as of all of us. We keep searching for the antidote to fill in that emptiness. In this imaginary world of ours the antidote may be the meeting. The joy and happiness stemming from this meeting is expressed through the art. The art is the doors that we try to create on this symbolic wall. Bruno Schulz wrote in “Loneliness”: “There is no room so walled up that it cannot be opened with such a trusted door”. With the participation of the audience we try to “insinuate” the door asking the question not about what is behind it but rather how to approach it.
FRAGMENTS OF REVIEW
“The wall with a view” tells a specific story - about loneliness and the role of art as a vehicle made to be close to people. But it can also be a story about the emotions of all of us that we have experienced, especially during pandemics. During that time everything has been put on hold, and loneliness, the sense of vanity and uncertainty started to have even more negative impact. “
(Monika Żmijewska, “Gazeta Wyborcza”)
INFORMATION ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Grupa Coincidentia / Coincidentia Group - is an independent puppet theatre founded in 2009 and has been managed by Dagmara Sowa and Paweł Chomczyk (the graduates of the Department of Puppet of Theatre Arts in Białystok). The group has staged several performances created in cooperation with below listed artists: Michael Vogel, Łukasz Kos, Christiane Zanger, Paweł Aigner, Michał Walczak, Robert Jarosz, Christoph Bochdansky, Paweł Passini, Robert Drobniuch, Konrad Dworakowski. The performances of Coincidentia have been presented at various festivals in Europe, Asia and North America, have also been awarded numerous prizes, including: The Bank of Scotland Herald Angel, Total Theater Award Edynburg, Grand Prix of Konteksty Festival in Poznań or Grand Prix MFTL in Toruń. The idea of contemporary theatre with multiple means of expression, with the emphasis on puppet theatre, lies in the centre of Coincidentia. Coincidentia has been in permanent cooperation with the German independent scene Lindenfels Westfluegel in Leipzig and the duo Figurentheater Wilde&Vogel.
The performances of Coincidentia have been staged at more than hundred festivals and in tens of receiving houses in Poland, Germany, Slovakia, Ukraine, Austria, Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Denmark, Great Britain, USA, Japan. According to the annual review of The Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute in Warsaw, Grupa Coincidentia has been three times one of the top winners, two times the first Polish theatre most frequently visiting abroad. The Group’s performances have been awarded with forty awards, honourable mentions and nominations - the majority of those have been granted by a jury of national and international theatre festivals. In the summary of “Theatre” magazine the Group has been mentioned several times under the label of “the best”. Coincidentia’s performances have been classified in the finals of the Theatre Institute - Theatre Poland.
In 2016 Grupa Coincidentia theatre founded Siedlisko Solniki 44 - an independent venue equipped with a theatre stage located in the woods of Zabłudów, Podlaskie county. The activities of Siedlisko to date have resulted in dozens of presentations of theatrical performances, including many world premieres, demonstrations of the effects of artistic and educational workshops, as well as work in progress presentations and panel discussions. Solniki 44 hosted viewers from Poland, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, USA, France, Belarus, Great Britain, Belgium. The participants of events were: artists, producers, curators, festival organisers from Poland, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Netherlands, Israel, Great Britain and the USA. The centre has become a production site for an independent theatre, a guest stage, and a space for organising educational and pro-social projects, e.g. as part of the Theatre Institute in Warsaw - Summer in the Theatre program. In 2018 the centre initiated the International Theatre Festival in the Forest - LasFest, which included several dozen events, and they founded LasKids in 2020 - a festival aimed at a young audience, and under which there are the most interesting independent performances staged, laboratory activities, concerts, student shows, conversations with artists, unconventional presentations combining art with nature.
Coincidentia is an intersection, where creative ideas meet in a non-coincidental way, sometimes hard to explain. Coincidentia is an utopian drive to border with the areas that permeate and ensure the harmonious coexistence of opposites. Coincidentia is about connecting autonomous artistic ways penetrating various areas of theatrical life. Grupa Coincidentia is a place where opposites attract.
Robert Jarosz - born in Białystok in 1982. The graduate of the Department of Puppet of Theatre Arts in Warsaw. One of the most interesting playwrights of the young generation. The following plays have been awarded, published and staged: “W beczce chowany” (“Raised in a barrel”), “Bez podłogi” (“Without the floor”), “Szczurzysyn” (“Ratson”), “Wnyk” (“Snare”), “W brzuchu wilka” (“In wolf’s belly”). Multiple award winner of theatre arts competition organised by Children’s Art Centre in Poznań. The texts of his plays have been red aloud during prestigious theatrical festivals in Gdynia and Warsaw. The performance of Opolski Teatr Lalki i Aktora (Puppet and Actor Theatre in Opole) of “Wnyk” (“Snare”) has entered the All-Poland Competition for Polish Contemporary Art Exhibition and received the two consecutive jury awards accepted by Robert Jarosz for the text of the play and respectively Bogusław Kierc for direction - as the single one out of many proposals for children and adolescents. “Wnyk” (“Snare”) was published in “Dialog” (“Dialogue”) magazine (2011, issue 2). Robert Jarosz is also a director of children’s theatre “Where is Pinocchio?” based on the literature of Carlo Collodi and presented under the auspices of “Summer in the theatre”, as well as modern events for the youngest viewer: “Dudi bez piórka” (“Dudi without a feather") in Teatr Baj Pomorski Theatre in Toruń, “Audiopyłki” (“Audiodusts”) and “Szczurzysyn” (“Ratson”) at the Children’s Art Centre in Poznań, “Słoń i kwiat” (“The elephant and the flower”) in Białostocki Teatr Lalek (Puppet Theatre of Białystok), “Krzywiryjek” in Wrocławski Teatr Lalek (Puppet Theatre of Wrocław). He has been an artistic director of Guliwer Puppet Theater in Warsaw as of 2012/2013 where in 2015 he staged „Brzydkie kaczątko” (”Ugly duckling”) and “Sonia śpi gdzie indziej” ("Sonia sleeps somewhere else"). In 2016 he directed his very own text “Lustrzana chmura” (“Mirror cloud") in Theatre of Animation in Poznań - the performance qualified to the finals of 22nd edition of All-Poland Competition for the Polish Contemporary Art Staging and was awarded theatrical scenery prize.
Konrad Dworakowski - director and actor, graduate and teacher of the Białystok Department of Puppet - Theatre Arts at The Aleksander Zelwerowicz National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw. Teacher at the Grazyna and Kiejstut Bacewicz University of Music in Lodz, and of the Theatre Education at the Institute of Polish Culture of University of Warsaw. In 2003-2005 he was the artistic director of Guliwer Puppet Theatre in Warsaw. He has directed in puppet and dramatic theatres in Poland and abroad. The most important productions: “Mikrokosmos / Microcosm”, “Hydrokosmos / Hydrocosm” of the Pantomime Theatre in Wroclaw, “Balladyny i romanse / Balladynas and Romances”, “Bruno Schulz - Historia występnej wyobraźni / Bruno Schulz - History of Immoral Imagination”, “Chłopcy z Placu Broni / The Paul Street Boys”, “Don Kichot” of Pinocchio Theatre in Lodz, “Król Maciuś I / King Matt the First” of Banialuka Theatre in Bielsko-Biała and “Dumanowski side A” of Stary Theatre in Kraków. Konrad Dworakowski is the author of scenarios and lyrics, he writes both for children and adults. He also conducts his own workshops on the theatre of form. He was the director of Teatr Pinokio in Lodz in the years 2009-2019. The originator of projects related to social and cultural revitalization in Lodz, Wałbrzych and Katowice (including “Punkty Kultury / Culture Points”, “Wjeżdżamy w bramy / We enter the gates”, “Bramogranie / Playing at the gates”). The originator and artistic director of the International Festival “Teatralna Karuzela / Theatrical Merry-go-round”.
LINKS
- https://www.grupacoincidentia.pl/en
- https://www.grupacoincidentia.pl/en/performances/sciana-z-widokiem
