RETRO/PER/SPEKTYWY

CHOREA. Theatre Festival. Łódź 2010

august 13 – 21

RETRO/PER/SPEKTYWY: CHOREA – Theatre Festival Łódź 2010 is designed as a space for confrontation of the innovative theater research, a platform for the workshop meetings and a point of discussions concerning the changes in the 21st century’s theater.

August 13-21, 2010, in postindustrial spaces of Lodz, the spectators will be allowed to see the review of the most important Chorea’s performances and the newest creations/achievements of the invited groups.

5 years of the Theater Chorea existence is a perfect moment for the first RETRO/PER/SPECTIVE of its artistic, research and educational activity and the presentation of two premiers: GROTOWSKI- próba odwrotu directed by Tomasz Rodowicz and Antyk/Trans/Formation in modern ethno-jazz interpretation.

The first edition of the Festival will be held within the framework of the two theatrical tryptich showing the tension that is created on the clash of the tradition and contemporarlity

1. Sophocles – Euripides – Aristophanes (Antigone, dir. Dorota Porowska,  The Songs of Euripides, dir. Tomasz Rodowicz,  After the birds, dir. Jim Ennis, Jessica Cohen, Tomasz Rodowicz)
2. Herbert – Grotowski – Wyspiański (Playing Mr Cogito, dir. Tomasz Rodowicz, GROTOWSKI – próba odwrotu dir .Tomasz Rodowicz, premiere Odpoczywanie, dir. Paweł Passini)

In the frames of the Festival there will be also shown the performances of cooperating and fellow theaters. Our guests will be: neTTheater, Studium Teatralne form Warsaw, KANA Theater form Szczecin and Trupa Czango.

Creating RETRO/PER/SPECTIVES we are establishing new, periodical, cultural event, which next editions, expanded by the presence of eminent, international theatre groups. It will break, every second year, the anachronistic division between the theater of word, movement and music, thus regaining its undividable triple unity – CHOREA – the vital foundation of the theater.

In the perspective of our Festival CHOREA is not a specific name, but a description of the idea opening new spaces for the contemporary theater and determining new challenges for the actor – a storyteller, dancer, singer, as well as for the director, who should be a dramatist, choreographer and composer at the same moment.

We aim for RETRO/PER/SPEKTYWY: CHOREA Festiwal Teatralny Łódź 2010 to become a permanent point of reference on the theatrical map of Poland and to contribute as an important element of Lodz’s application for the title of European Capital of Culture 2016.

Tomasz Rodowicz
The Artistic Director

Chorea in Los Angeles – Rosanna Gamson/World Wide’s Tov

For three weeks in January and March, 2010, Chorea was working and developing creative cooperation with Rosanna Gamson/World Wide’s, that started after International Theater Workshop – Body, Voice, Rhythm conducted by Chorea in Łódź 2009. The performance – Tov (meaning “good”) – was choreographed and directed by Los Angeles-based artist Rosanna Gamson, Tov features a vocal score created by Chorea and sets and lights designed by Christopher Kuhl. Developed in the US and Poland with artists from both countries, Tov premiere was with a bi-national cast at the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater Thursday, March 18, 2010 through Saturday, March 27, 2010.

Deftly weaving together intense physical movement, spoken word, vocal music, and the “theater laboratory” ensemble techniques originated by Jerzy Grotowski, Rosanna Gamson stages a profusely evocative dance drama around the story of the tarpan – an extinct species of Eurasian wild horse that was genetically “reassembled” in the 1930s through back-breeding of domestic horses. The Los Angeles choreographer braids this allegory of regeneration with reflections on the history of her own Polish-Jewish ancestors, horse traders from Szczecin, and the fate of Polish Jewry. Tov takes its title from “Gamzu l’tovah” (“This too is for the good”), a favorite saying of one of Gamson’s forebears, Talmudic scholar Nachum ish Gamzu, who found God’s hand even in tragedy. The full-evening work features a cast of fourteen American and three Polish performers, with text spoken and sung in Hebrew, Polish, English, Yiddish, Bulgarian and German.

Beyond its ambitious globalism, Tov was recognizably made in Los Angeles. It carried the local mellowness of spirit and pacing. It offered solace in L.A.-style multiculturalism. Astonishingly, for a piece evoking the Holocaust, it was kind-spirited. Indeed, Tov was good. So, mazel tov!

Debra Levine, Los Angeles Times

17-21.11.2009

DNA (Development of New Art) Residency in Łódź

Between 17th and 21st of November 2009 took place an international theatre residency in Łódź (Poland), co-organised by the Chorea Theatre Association and was based on Chorea’s working methods.

Twenty participants from Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia came for five days to Łódź to create one group and to learn how to build up the musicality, dynamism and energy of this group. The hard and demanding training was concentrated on the basics of working with a partner and the space, mutual attention, assurance, body consciousness, group consciousness and interaction with a partner. Actors, dancers, directors, students had a chance to know and examine the principle of the Chorea theatre, which is simultaneous work with the body, voice and rhythm.

Apart from the training the program of the residency included:

• an open for public meeting and discussion about the DNA project as an example of international cooperation in the field of theatre,
• a special presentation of the Chorea’s work on ancient material,
• presentation of Gry (w) Pana Cogito, Chorea’s newest performance.

The final phase of the residency was an open presentation of the participants’ work. It consisted on the movement structures elaborated by participants combined with ancient Greek songs and choreography, as well as with rhythmic work on the contemporary poems of Zbigniew Herbert.

More about the project at: www.dna-project.eu

4-10.11.2009

Teatr Polska – Theater Poland

Theater Poland is an innovative project of the Theater Institute in Warsaw, funded by The Ministry of Art and National Hertige. The inspiration for the organizers were the theater tours that took place in the middle-war period by Reduta Theater by Juliusz Osterwa and Mieczysław Limanowski. Their aim was to present the most important achievements of polish culture to small town’s inhabitants.

Within Theater Poland project selected performances were presented in polish small towns, between September and December 2009. The goal was to arouse the interest in theater of the societies that are usually lucking this contact and move collaborating theaters out of their own environment. Through two-stage qualification process the performance Gry (w) Pana Cogito was recommended to join the project.

Within the project the performance was presented seven times, additionally to the performance Chorea’s members conducted the theater workshops:

4.11 – Lodz

5.11 – Sieradz

6.11 – Skierniewice

7.11 – Łochów

8.11 – Radomsko

9.11 – Tomaszów Mazowiecki

10.11 – Grójec

“International Meeting on Ancient Drama”  in Delphi
9 July 2009

“Songs of Euripides” is the second stage of Chorea’s work on Euripides’ “The Bacchae”. The first was “Bakkus” produced in 2006 together with Welsh company Earthfall Dance. In “Bakkus” the main issue was unwelcome, suffering and ruthless man-god, looking for revenge in the contemporary world. In “Songs of Euripides” the main theme is women – the bacchae. In collective ecstasy they reach towards that, which is most intimate and hidden in human being but in religious and devotional ecstasy it may become threatening and lead to crime – 2500 years ago just as well as today. The performance is reading the play through gesture, song and dance reaching towards nowadays. It is looking for new language to communicate meanings with the world – contemporary chorea – the unity of music, gesture and the word. The text in ancient Greek clashes with brilliant Polish translation by Jerzy Łanowski, today’s music is confronted with the Bacchic accord of antiquity.

In 2008 the team of Chorea plans to begin working on the third part of the trilogy, which explores contemporary issues in Euripides texts.