Magda Jędra / Weronika Pelczyńska / Iza Szostak: EUROPE. INQUIRY

Poland: 24 thousand shops with secondhand clothes. Europe: 120 thousand clothing companies. World: 4 million pairs of hands sewing clothes in Bangladesh.

Three artists invite the audience to an enormous European used clothes store, full of secondhand fantasies and used-up dreams about the future. In this collage of improvisation and webs of connections (both visible and invisible), the dancers explore differences between what is remote and global, and what is personal. They conduct a performative inquiry into the future of Europe. How much does cooperation cost? When has a partner become an obstacle? When have values turned into obsessions?

This is also a show about the work of a dancer, its materiality and price. The artists ask the audience about the relationship between dancer and spectator, between an active subject and an observer.

It is a show about unexpected consequences of cooperation and collective action, where that which was supposed to provide a sense of security, turns out to be another form of oppression, and that which was supposed to scare us – makes us laugh.

The show uses data from reports by Asia Monitor Resource Centre and War on Want available at: http://amrc.org.hk/system/files/FFM-Cambodia- Report-022014-amrc_0.pdf and http://www.waronwant.org/attachments/Fashion%20Victims.pdf.

Choreography: Magda Jędra, Weronika Pelczyńska, Iza Szostak
Dramaturgy: Agata Szczęśniak
Lights design: Karolina Gębska
Lights: Michał Głaszczka
Set design: Wojciech Pustoła
Production: Komuna//Warszawa

Premiere: July 2014, Komuna//Warszawa

Duration: 45 min

Project is co-financed by the Warsaw City Hall and the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, with the support of Burdąg Foundation, Centrum w Ruchu, District Council of Wawer, Warsaw

Magda Jędra

A dancer, choreographer, performer. She started dancing at the Gdańsk Dance Theatre run by Melissa Monteros and Wojciech Mochniej. She cooperates with Ramona Nagabczyńska, Anita Wach, Rafał Dziemidok, and Anna Steller. She combines various styles in her work, as well as means belonging to categories described as pop culture and “high culture”. The basis of her creative process is improvisation. Her performances are close to the concept of performance art and site-specific movement. She teaches improvisation and modern dance techniques.

Weronika Pelczyńska

A dancer and choreographer. Graduate of SEAD Modern Dance Academy in Salzburg. She has received the DanceWeb 2013 (ImpulsTanz) and Carte Blanche 2013 (Modul Dance) scholarships. She has performed in Austria, Germany, Italy, Croatia, France and Poland. She cooperates with Polish and foreign choreographers. Since 2010 she also creates scenic movement and choreography for plays in drama theater, movies and music videos. She is a member of Centrum w Ruchu (Centre in Movement) – a Warsaw-based association of choreographers and performers.

Agata Szczęśniak

A sociologist, social activist, publicist, co-founder of “Krytyka Polityczna” (“Political Critique”) and the Stanislaw Brzozowski Association. Graduate and postgraduate student at the Institute of Applied Social Sciences of the University of Warsaw, studied philosophy at UW, has been granted scholarship from Yale University. She has interest in the changes of current political systems, US politics, developing countries, new social movements, feminist movements, and theater.

Iza Szostak

A dancer and choreographer. Graduate of the Warsaw Ballet School and Codarts – Rotterdam Dance Academy in the Netherlands, currently studying at Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Warsaw. She was an intern at the Jan Fabre/Troubleyn company in Belgium. Author of performances: Body. Child. Object, Visiting Women, Europe. Inquiry, Excavatory Ballet. In her practice she uses authentic movement, choreologies and improvisations. She has interest in agency of the body and objects, anthropology, visual arts, working with memory and senses, and biographicity. She conducts regular dance classes for senior citizens in the Wawer district of Warsaw. Co-creator of Centrum w Ruchu (Centre in Movement).

Wojtek Pustoła

Visual artist. Creator of videos, sculptor, performance artist and set designer. Graduate of the Faculty of Sculpture of the University of Warsaw and the Intermedia faculty in Poznan. He holds exhibitions in Poland and abroad, including Coming Soon at Temporary Gallery in Cologne; Vordemberge-Gildewart Award at MOCAK. He cooperates with the Centrum w Ruchu (Centre in Movement) modern dance platform as video and set creator.

Michał Głaszczka

Lighting designer. Graduate of the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Warsaw and Machulski Acting School. Lightning designer for over thirty plays in Poland. Producer for many concerts, photo sessions and TV recordings.

Komuna// Warszawa

One of Poland’s most important independent theatres, exploring the borderlines of performing arts, video installations and music. Komuna// Warszawa addresses important contemporary issues, ceaselessly searching for new forms and means of expression. Komuna performances have been presented and awarded at prestigious festivals, such as Edinburgh, Kiev, Moscow, Berlin, New York, Munich, Tbilisi or Tehran. Since 2007 the company has been working in Warsaw’s Praga district, focusing theater groups and artists from various fields. Well-known artists, such as Monika Strzępka and Paweł Demirski, Krzysztof Skonieczny, Marcin Liber, Paweł Passini, Krzysztof Garbaczewski and Marcin Cecko, Leszek Bzdyl, Mikołaj Mikołajczyk, Weronika Szczawińska, or Wojtek Ziemilski have staged their work there. In 2013 Komuna// Warszawa has initiated creation of the Institute for Performing Arts.