Ciało i sacrum. O „Bogu Niżyńskim” Piotra Tomaszuka
Body and Sacrum. On Bóg Niżyński by Piotr Tomaszuk

Summary/Abstract: Presentation of a multi-aspect analysis of Piotr Tomaszuk’s auteur spectacle: Bóg Niżyński (God Nijinsky) from 2006. The author discusses the realisation proposed by Teatr Wierszalin, i.a. within the context of the titular artist’s biography, in particular the experience of mental illness, his greatest stage creations (in Petrushka, The Afternoon of a Faun, and The Rite of Spring), and the dancer’s relationship with Sergei Diaghilev, founder of Ballets Russes, whose person becomes of key importance for Tomaszuk. The author of the article situates the Tomaszuk spectacle in, i.a. the context of earlier cultural texts also dedicated to Nijinsky. Moreover, she indicates that the drama and spectacle inspired by Nijinsky’s Journal embarks upon themes significant in the Tomaszuk oeuvre: faith and saintliness, sin and repentance, the possibility of conversion and forgiveness, and pure and unclean love, also in its bodily dimension – mystic and erotic, shown in the body of the dancer-God as a meeting place of the sacrum and the profanum, i.a. via analogies to the Passion of Christ and the despair of Petrushka. Next, the author writes about the means applied by the director (including those of the actors, in particular regarding the performer of the lead part – Rafał Gąsowski) indicating, i.a. references to the works of Tadeusz Kantor and Jerzy Grotowski. Finally, she undertakes an attempt at analysing elements construing Tomaszuk’s blasphemous Passion spectacle inscribed into the composition of a ritual, liturgy à rebours, including references to a sacrilegiously re-fashioned Eastern Orthodox memorial service – the panikhida, with Nijinsky as priest and, at the same time, God.

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