Performances directed by students of Academy of Theater Arts in Krakow and awarded at the 11th Young Forum Directed 2021:
1. Ever Given – dir. Piotr Pacześniak
23 March 2021. 7:40 am. Due to heavy winds, the 400-metre container ship Ever Given topples sideways
and runs aground, paralyzing the Suez Canal, one of the most important trade routes in the world. The container ship remains in the Canal for 7 days. On 25 March, a picture of an excavator standing right next to the ship buried aground and trying on its own to dig it out circulates the Internet. What could the excavator say to the container ship if it could speak? How would the container ship reply to the digger if it could, too? Taking a cue from the conventions of Disney fairy tales, we want to reflect on the nature of success, failure, submission and defiance in a world of globalized commerce and the neoliberal system. It turns out that all it takes is a spectacular failure like Ever Given for a system that seemed inviolable not so long ago to start tottering in its foundations. If we are expected to constantly win, perhaps we need to start enjoying spectacular defeats? Why should we always give in to the tides and currents? Maybe we should all get stranded for 7 days and say, as the copyist Bartleby would, that ‘we would rather not’?
text: Piotr Pacześniak, Aleksandra Samelczak, Przemysław Przestrzelski
direction, stage design, musical arrangement: Piotr Pacześniak
choreography: Kinga Bobkowska
cast: Aleksandra Samelczak, Przemysław Przestrzelski
educational supervision: Marcin Wierzchowski
2. Częstotliwość graniczna – dir. Jakub Zalasa
In the face of the climate catastrophe, global pandemics and digitalization penetrating the fabric of our relationships, it is difficult to be positive about reality. Depression appears to be the natural human condition. Częstotliwość graniczna explores the possibility of narrating a story about depression in a soothing and relieving manner.
Inspired by the short story by D.F. Wallace entitled The Depressed Person, the protagonist travels to three places, starting from the therapist’s office: the Future, then the hotel Present and the coffee shop Past. She seeks to provoke each encountered person to answer the question about what the cutoff frequency is for each of them: where is the moment of transition from the state of apparent calm and diurnal cycle to neurosis, resulting in the rejection of social contacts? Where is the limit of endurance and are we able to spend the last moments before the end of the world together?
direction: Jakub Zalasa
dramaturgy: Wera Makowskx
stage design: Agnieszka Bylina
cast: Maria Wójtowicz, Szymon Czacki, Michał Balicki, Kamila Janik, Kinga Bobkowska, Adam Wietrzyński
3. Ojcowie – dir. Błażej Biegasiewicz
The performance explores fatherhood as seen from the perspective of young men – still childless, but at the age when fatherhood can already be thought of very seriously. This ‘possible father’ status is shared by all actors, and the performance is based on the authentic experiences and subjective feelings of all artists. Imagining themselves as dads has naturally prompted memories of fatherhood experienced from the perspective of sons. This theme is of fundamental importance. To create a reference point for the next paradigm of fatherhood, it was necessary to come to terms with the previous paradigm of fatherhood and reflect upon what is worth salvaging, what is worth taking from it and what needs to be changed. This transition – from the father of previous generations to the father of the future – is the major theme of the show.
masks: Alicja Kolińska
cast: Mateusz Grodecki, Maciej Karczewski, Filip Lipiecki, Marcin Piotrowiak
lower-case a and educational supervision: Marcin Wierzchowski
Taniec i zmysły. Three one-act dance performances contemporary:
1. Ashes of a Dead Frog
This is a revival of a choreographic work created in 2006 for the Nai Ni Chen Dance Company in New York, marking new collaboration with the company and being a tribute to Nai Ni Chen, the visionary contemporary dance artist and founder of Nai Ni Chen Dance Company, who passed away in early 2020. If you reach a turning point in your life, resort to the symbolism of the frog. The spirit of the frog will help you make changes and transformations you need within yourself and will cleanse your body, mind and spirit. Understanding toads and frogs is the key to life metamorphosis. The symbolism of the frog contains profound truth, transformation and change. The frog goes through various stages of metamorphosis. And as our spirit animal, it pushes us towards similar transformations.
It helps us connect with our emotions and gives us the motivation to expel negative energy from our lives, as this spirit animal cannot coexist in a toxic environment. The symbolism of this creature is present in many cultures and has many meanings. Being a traveler between land and water, it symbolizes the creature’s connection to the moon and the afterlife, thus evoking numerous connections to spells, sorcerers and magical powers. The frog takes different forms and shapes in different cultures, from an ingredient in a love potion to a demonic beast to a good luck talisman. Because of their close association with water, toads are a symbol of cleansing and renewal, and as a spirit they seem to heal our mind, body and soul.
2. Bodily Suites Reclaimed
The play was created in response to pandemic isolation.
Do you know the warm progress under the stars?
Do you know we exist?
Have you forgotten the keys to the kingdom?
Have you been born yet, and are you alive?
Jim Morrison
choreografia / choreography: Jacek Łumiński
wykonanie / cast: Angelika Karal, Łukasz Zgórka,
Sebastian Wiertelak
3. Tymczasem
Conversations, memories and stories became a pretext for movement explorations and a kind of introduction to being with each other, being full of empathy and intimacy, both privately and on stage.
choreography: Anna Mikuła, Daniel Leżoń
cast: Jadwiga Radkiewicz, Franciszek Radkiewicz, Karolina Januszek, Daniel Leżoń
Meetings
1. Unwanted Legacy? On Transformations in Theatre in Recent Years
Over the last few years, the art of theatre (not only in Poland) has undergone significant transformations – both formal and organizational. Phenomena such as revelations of violence or sexual harassment, actors’ protests, outright overwork, and tiredness, but also catastrophes such as a pandemic or war have led to the situation in which the theatre could not remain indifferent to its own weaknesses. How does the theatre try to work through them? How does it address them artistically and institutionally? Did the shape and tasks of contemporary theatre criticism also change with the changes taking place?
Participants: dr Monika Kwaśniewska-Mikuła (Jagiellonian University), dr Magdalena Rewerenda
(Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań), dr Stanisław Godlewski (Polish Academy of Sciences)
Moderation: dr Miłosz Markiewicz (Silesian Theatre, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań).
2, What After Theatre? Searching for New Languages of Art
Is the language of theatre today still sufficient to talk about the most pressing issues of the contemporary world? How can we change reality through art? These are just some of the questions we would like to pose to the directors competing in the INTERPRETACJE festival. It is not without reason that their voices have been chosen as the most interesting in Polish theatre of the young generation – they will set the tone for the next artistic seasons in Polish theatre. So how do they imagine the future of theatre? What would they like to change, and what would they like to keep from the world left to them by “the old masters”?
Participants: Wiktor Bagiński, Damian Josef Neć, Jakub Skrzywanek, Jagoda Szelc, Michał Telega
Moderation: Miłosz Markiewicz.