At the beginning of 2012, CHOREA Theatre presented the performance  “Grotowski – an attempt to retreat” in India twice:

First on January 9 in New Delhi, second on January 12 in the capital of Punjab – Amritsar.

The performance for the first time in large part was played in english.

In both cities the spectacle “Grotowski – an attempt to retreat,” was enthusiastically received and have met with a spontaneous reaction of the audience, and by many was considered the best and most important performance of 14th edition of the Festival BHARAT RANG MAHOTSAV, organized by the National School of Darma in New Delhi.

Bharat Rang Mahotsav was established a decade ago by the National School of Drama to stimulate the growth and development of theatre across India. Originally a national festival showcasing the work of the most creative theatre workers in India, it has evolved to international scope, hosting theatre companies from around the world, and is now the largest theatre festival of Asia.

See more at: http://www.nsdtheatrefest.com/home.php

Director: Tomasz Rodowicz

Music: Tomasz Krzyżanowski

Choreography: CHOREA

Stage design: Paweł Korbus, Tomasz Rodowicz

Light: Tomasz Krukowski

Cast: Joanna Chmielecka, Julia Jakubowska, Małgorzata Lipczyńska, Janusz Adam Biedrzycki, Piotr Grabowski, Paweł Korbus, Tomasz Rodowicz

Premiere date: Friday, 13.08.2010 (Festival Opening); Friday, 20.08.2010, Factory of Art

This project is both exciting and risky: ‘Jerzy Grotowski – the greatest revolutionary of the 20^th century theatre’. I am coming back to Grotowski after so many years partly as a result of my protest against what has been done to this person and partly because I feel I owe him something – as a human being, but most of all as an artist. Having seen his Apocalypsis cum figuris in 1974, I decided I have to do theatre – with no possibility of retreat. Today I feel I need to confront his practical achievements, his thoughts related to the theatre, man and religion. I do not want to achieve it through more recollections, conferences or seminars but through the practical experience of people who want to deal with theatre and need to know if they are somehow related to him or not. Is this a closed door or maybe there is a scratch, a mark, anxiety, taint and heritage to be confronted in order to see if you are worth it or if you should stand up to it and reject it?

I started working on this project with people who, because of their age, had no contact with Grotowski, his para-theatrical and theatrical practice, the ‘art as a vehicle’ period, his actors or anyone who worked with him. What they knew about him is just as much as an average young person does – almost nothing. In most cases, they kept their distance. It was more of a moderate interest than fascination. For them, this man, who turned the world theatre upside down, was a strange, historical and archived cultural figure. It was a perfect starting point. Those people were ready, without any ideology or bias, to start checking who or what he was for them. Each actor/performer tried finding an answer to a question which was important to them, e.g. how does Grotowski’s image of an actor relate to the pro-egocentric education provided by modern theatre schools? Can you ‘refer’ to Grotowski while looking for your own personal identity? To what extent are his rules valid in a mental asylum? Can you create theatre/performance without wanting to be an actor? Most probably, any other group of people would ask different questions.

Through this project, I would like to find out if there is anything in his heritage which is meaningful for these young people. If that is the case, it must be confronted with their thinking about themselves, life, theatre and art, and they will face it themselves. My role is only to walk among them and tell them if I believe or not. Sometimes, I will add something, but I will not exaggerate, I promise.

Tomasz Rodowicz

A spectacular concert of ancient music, entwined with impulsive body movements that gives rise to an inseparable unity. Odd rhythms and polyphonic chants reconstructed from twenty five hundred years old inscriptions on papyrus and stone are vibrant with modern energy, and the singers, dancers and musicians work hand in hand fluently taking each others’ places in turns.

We have tried to interpret those compositions with reference to Balkan musical tradition, but currently we tend to be drifting towards jazz and modern music. Inspired by the ancient art, we create our own art – deeply modern one.

Monodrama realized by Janusz Adam Biedrzycki

director: Magdalena Paszkiewicz

choreography: Magdalena Paszkiewicz, Janusz Adam Biedrzycki

1. What fills my space is…

2. What constricts my space is…

3. What creates my space

1. woman

2. men

3. loneliness

We are creating a space of a man, a male, incomplete… and filled with a story of limitations.

We are throwing him in various roles and parts, and we are throwing him out of himself. We are allowing him to play a game with his own body, his conscience, his convictions and beliefs on himself and on the others. We are giving him a possibility to acostume the ‘other’ type of love and to search of „a boy in a man, or maybe of a man in a boy…”

But there is no escape form loneliness, and on its edge encroaches a schizophrenic isolation.

“Roosters, badgers and other goats”

music and dance performance

direction: Iga Zaleczna

choreography: Iga Zaleczna, Janusz Adam Biedrzycki

music: Tomasz Krzyzanowski, Maciej Maciaszek, Jakub Palys

light, sound: Tomasz Krukowski

cast: Joanna Chmielecka, Malgorzata Lipczynska, Katarzyna Pekala, Iga Zaleczna,

Janusz Adam Biedrzycki, Tomasz Ciesielski, Mateusz Lapka

CRUST / FRAGMENTS / CRACKED BODY / BODY CLOSED IN STILLNESS / IN A CLASSICAL CANON / IN A SCULPTED GESTURE / INCOMPLITE GESTURE / MUTILATED BY TIME / SOFT SKIN / STRECHED ON BONES / MUSCLE SCULPTURE / BREATH / RHYTHM / MOTION LINE / BODY WHICH FOLLOWS / WHICH IS READING FROM FRAGMENTS / ALIVE / IN A SPACE OF UNKNOWN / COMPLEMENTARY / IN A PERPETUAL MOTION

“Roosters, badgers and other goats” project opens up the next stage of work and research on the motion of Ancient Greece, led by dancers and actors of CHOREA Theatre. It is a kind of practical anthropology of dance, in which the context of theoretical research becomes an element of artistic work within the dance practice. Cultural heritage of Ancient Greece and body in motion closed at that heritage create live space for dynamic artistic search, creativity and expression.

Antygona / Antigone

(on the basis of Sophocles’ Antigone translated by Stanisław Hebanowski)

(performance created in co-production with Kana Theatre)

Director: Dorota Porowska

Music: Tomasz Krzyżanowski

Choreography: Zuzanna Adamkiewicz, Małgorzata Lipczyńska, Dorota Porowska, Adam Biedrzycki

Light: Tomasz Krukowski

Premiere cast: Bibianna Chimiak, Julia Jakubowska, Małgorzata Lipczyńska, Dorota Porowska, Adam Biedrzycki, Hubert Domański, Piotr Starzyński, David Sypniewski.

Premiere location: Teatr CHOREA, Łódź

Premiere date: 24.10.2009

Hardly curbing its Dionysian power, the chorus enters the orchestra, i.e. the ritual dancing square. It is a collective entity and an impersonation of the nation’s soul. Dionysus is the leader, which results from the very nature of the ancient theatre. The god of debauchery, insanity and ecstatic surges is being contained by a system of strict grammatical and stylistic rules of language. Entrance of the chorus – parodos: raising a leg, striking a foot to confirm the uttered truth which thus becomes binding, freezing, and waiting as the dumb testimony of something happening.

The formal analysis of the ancient tragedy chorus, its speech, gesture and movement strategy, closed in the form of musical melodeclamation, is the theme of the artistic project developed for the last few years as a result of cooperation between Kana Theatre from Szczecin and CHOREA. We have chosen a classical tragedy. This time, we have decided to consistently follow the Sophocles’ playwrighting idea. Someone may find the below declarations perverse, but our intention is not to interpret it anew or perform it in a modern way but to make this play as close to the original as possible. We are far from psychological games and digressing about the rightness of the bases, especially taking into account the fact that the next generations of our fellow citizens still hold the judgement over the characters of the play in classroom and taking part in the discussion involving this topic became pointless a long time ago. The only thing for me to do now, while breaking through the stream of glittering words, is to make myself aware of all the altars, rhythm cascades, falling feet, audience’s sadness, setting sun and the wandering of sounds in that theatre. So, as in the Greek Theatre, the chorus and actors sing about their quandaries and feelings. While sliding through numerous world dance conventions, they create something like a cosy and only a little lofty opera. The chorus singing in ancient Greek is accompanied by modern music by Tomasz Krzyżanowski, entering into a clear and sharp dialogue with the Antiquity. We have created an eclectic, and thus incorrect, work in order to come a little closer to the divine catharsis.

Dorota Porowska

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