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Alfabetyzacja jako szkoła wolności. „Uczenie się przez całe życie”

Author(s): Katarzyna Nowaczyk / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 124/2014

Katarzyna Nowaczyk raises the issue of adult illiteracy in European countries, seen not only through the context of education, but also in the spheres of culture and the economy. The author is interested in educational initiatives which use non-artistic theater as creative working tools, as in the work of the Nuovi Linguaggi organization. Nowaczyk primarily focuses on her experiences that came with participating in workshops at the Alcatraz center (Libera Università di Alcatraz) led by Jacopo Fo. She describes exercises carried out in the framework of the adult literacy project, as well as theatrical inspiration in the teaching process.

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Atomowa menażeria. Epizody z życia „potwornego”

Author(s): Patrycja Cembrzynska / Language(s): / Issue: 127-128/2015

The phantom of a traumatic, post-nuclear landscape haunts the culture, even in its popular manifestations. Patrycja Cembrzyńska recalls a range of tragic historical events associated with nuclear/atomic attacks, accidents, or experiments, and goes on to analyze texts that show their impact, or even remote echo. The author ponders the role of man, animals, and various mutations in this post-apocalyptic reality. Her deliberations also focus on issues tied to the functions of various cultural products that address this subject in the reader's/audience's consciousness.

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Brak i nadobecność. O obrazie polskiego doświadczenia Marca ’68 w filmach Andrzeja Wajdy

Author(s): Marta Brys / Language(s): / Issue: 126/2015

Marta Bryś analyses two films by Andrzej Wajda, both created in 1968: Everything for Sale and Layer Cake. According to the author, both productions are comments on the contemporary experiences of Polish society. Giving a detailed account of selected scenes and devices, Bryś points out that even though the films are very different, they contain traces of the dissolution of social bonds resulting from the mass emigration of Jews and the consequences of the government's usage of anti-Semitic rhetoric.

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Choreografia jako sieć neuronowa

Author(s): Katarzyna Lemanska / Language(s): / Issue: 127-128/2015

Katarzyna Lemańska reviews Tomasz Ciesielski's book The Dancing Mind: The Theater of Movement and Dance from a Neurocognitive Perspective (Łódź, 2014) devoted to the neuroaesthetics of dance. The author describes the structure of the publication in detail, noting that it facilitates two reading strategies – linear and issue-based. The book is addressed both to dance theorists and practitioners, and, as the author himself stresses, part of it remains debatable. Ciesielski states that his research method confirms the dancers' abilities, but is incapable of explaining the phenomenon of dance and movement.

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Dobra wróżka gafa. Mała antologia lapsusów literackich Jana Kotta

Author(s): Jerzy Timoszewicz / Language(s): / Issue: 127-128/2015

An anthology of Jan Kott's blunders preceded by an introduction by Maryla Zielińska which describes the relations between the former editorial team of Didaskalia magazine with Jerzy Timoszewicz. Timoszewicz's list was a present for the eighty-fifth birthday of his professor and close friend. Zielińska recalls that the editors did not accept the text for publication, because it did not “aim for the jugular and thus tripped over its own feet.” The present publication is a symbolic farewell to Jerzy Timoszewicz, who passed away on 24 March 2015.

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GROTOWSKI, WOMEN AND HOMOSEXUALS: ON THE MARGINS OF A “HUMAN DRAMA”

Author(s): Agata Adamiecka-Sitek / Language(s): / Issue: 2 English/2015

The author analyses Jerzy Grotowski’s production Apocalypsis cum figuris (Teatr Laboratorium, Wrocław, premiere of first version: 19 VII 1968) within the context of the gender struggle. In defiance of the canonic interpretations, Adamiecka-Sitek analyses femininity and masculinity in Grotowski’s work, revealing a kind of dramatization of the misogynistic discourse of psychoanalysis as well as male homosexuality and a species of mystical eroticism.

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Hard reset Wrocławski Teatr Współczesny: Gałgan, reż. Ewelina Marciniak

Author(s): Karolina Obszynska / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 124/2014

Karolina Obszyńska describes Ewelina Marciniak's play Rag (Wrocław Współczesny Theater, premiere: 27.06.2014) based on a text by Jarosław Murawski. This story of a pathological relationship between siblings – the blind Rag and his able-bodied sister – is only presented from the girl's perspective. In the form of a macabre show, the protagonist tells the audience the story of her traumatic childhood, marred by a destructive fight with her brother. Obszyńska wonders to what extent the performance would have been changed if the handicapped brother had been allowed to speak.

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Kawałek śmierci ci się jak łza w oku kręci

Author(s): Monika Kwasniewska / Language(s): / Issue: 129/2015

A review of Hamlet directed by Krzysztof Garbaczewski (Stary Teatr, Cracow, prem. 13 Jun 2015). Kwaśniewska notes that by cutting and editing, transferring text from character to character, multiplicating the figure of Hamlet and adding plotlines and characters absent from the play, the creators of this staging of Shakespeare's text the flavour of an unpredictable event. Tracing the different strands of the show and referring them to contexts from the interpretative and theatrical tradition of Hamlet suggested in the performance, the author notices that Garbaczewski's principal guide is Stanisław Wyspiański. However, in this reading, inspired by the Hamlet Study, the director lacks precision in naming the themes he regards as crucial. As a result, he leaves Hamlet in a state of chaos – both fascinating and irritating.

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Kim jest Edek?

Author(s): Thomas Irmer / Language(s): / Issue: 127-128/2015

A review of Tango directed by Klaus-Peter Fischer (Landesbühne Sachsen in Dresden, premiere: 5.12.2014). Irmer notes that Sławomir Mrożek's drama was once very popular, read as a philosophical parable of cultural transformations, with the character of Artur in the center. With this return to the text after almost twenty years of its total absence on German stages, she notes a major shift in its interpretation. Irmer describes the historical (trauma caused by the destruction of cities in 1945), social, and political (the arising of a Dresden civic movement against Islamization) context of the premiere, indicating that Edek is central to Fischer's very classical staging. As a “plebian who radically changes and annihilates everything he fuses the history of many generations into a new tale through Tango.”

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Krystian Lupa: scenografia – filozofia przestrzeni teatralnej

Author(s): Wlodzimierz Szturc / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 123/2014

Włodzimierz Szturc insightfully analyzes the directorial accomplishments of Krystian Lupa in terms of his view of the world, his visual and metaphysical sensitivity. At the same time, he tries to sketch out a directive in Lupa's way of thinking about theater as a coherent philosophical work whose contents are expressed through various plays, projects, texts, and drawings. Szturc identifies the artist's consciousness with a shared ontology of the various plays, constructed through the set design: "magic objects” – fetishes, the recurring motif of the labyrinth, the frames and windows coming together to make a dynamic pictorial presentation of the artist's idea, through which, from the point of view of the Aristotelian ópseos kósmos there could be a way of expressing the philosophy of Lupa's work as a whole.

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Książę i kamera

Author(s): Agata Adamiecka-Sitek / Language(s): / Issue: 127-128/2015

Agata Adamiecka-Sitek provides an insightful analysis of the straight-to-video play The Prince created by Karol Radziszewski, based on a script by Dorota Sajewska. The author notes that the play is based on a deconstructive discussion with Jerzy Grotowski's The Constant Prince, with a special focus on the titular role played by Ryszard Cieplak, and also on the performative activation of the documentation of the performance itself.

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Laboratorium TR

Author(s): Karolina Leszczynska / Language(s): / Issue: 129/2015

The article is an account of the project “Teren TR” (“TR Terrain” - TR Warsaw 7-26 Jun 2015), whose aim was to allow young creators to become noticed in the world of the theatre and theatre experiments (e.g. through connecting theatre with other branches of art). The author analyses and interprets three out of five performances: Ewelina płacze (Evelyn is crying) by Anna Karasińska, Grind/r by Piotr Trojan and #Jaś #i #Małgosia (#Hansel #and #Gretel) by Michał Szymonik and Elżbieta Depta. She also points out the games with illusion and reality, manifested distance from the topic and metatextual commentary. Leszczyńska notices that the high quality of the performances that reached the finals is determined by formal experiments and allusions to contemporary reality. However, she also claims that the performances were conceived with a particular festival in mind, and outside of this context their formal innovation can be less attractive.

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Melancholia taksydermii

Author(s): Monika Zólkos / Language(s): / Issue: 127-128/2015

Monika Żółkoś takes the reader into the world of taxidermy, the art of stuffing and treating dead animals. Departing from colonialism, Żółkoś presents selected extracts from the history of taxidermy, covers some techniques for preparing animal bodies, as well as the ambitions and premises of the creators of the practice. Żółkoś juxtaposes the work of taxidermists, which is historically perceived as scientific or for display purposes, with the work of contemporary artists working in “artistic taxidermy.” She analyzes Katarzyna Kozyra's Animal Pyramid, Iris Schieferstein's Life Can Be So Nice, and works by Angela Singer.

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Modrzejewska – muza teatrologicznego źródłoznawstwa

Author(s): Diana Poskuta-Wlodek / Language(s): / Issue: 127-128/2015

Diana Poskuta-Włodek proves that source research continues to be essential to the development of theatrology, using constantly updated methodology. She investigates this on the basis of the continuing research into the life and work of Helena Modrzejewska. In this context the prime example, according to the author, is Modrzejewska/Letters: The Correspondence of Helena Modrzejewska and Karol Chłapowski 1859-1886, Volumes 1 and 2, edited by Alicja Kędziora and Emil Orzechowski (Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, Warsaw 2015). It includes all the available correspondence between Modrzejewska and Chłapowski,precededby a reprint of Jerzy Got's introduction from the 1965 publication, and also furnished with an editor's note, and footnotes that are largely new or updated.

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Mów/move. Od neolingwizmu w poezji do nowego języka w dramacie

Author(s): Karolina Wycisk / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 125/2015

Karolina Wycisk writes about the plays of Marcin Cecko, an artist who deals not only with theatre, but with photography and performance as well. He is also one of the founders of the Warsaw neolinguistic poetic group. Using the examples of performances Cecko has created with director Krzysztof Garbaczewski – Balladyna, The Odyssey, The Sexual Life of Savages - Wycisk points out the main features of Cecko's texts: performativity, a large margin for actors' improvisation, use of puns, a disregard for plot and grammar. The author of the article also mentions the incessant transformations of his work, as he is unwilling to have it recorded or published. He thinks a text should undergo constant transformation – always remain in a state of flux.

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Mówić to mówić, tańczyć to tańczyć

Author(s): Katarzyna Lemanska / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 124/2014

Katarzyna Lemańska reviews Sally Banes's book Terpsichore in Sneakers: Post-Modern Dance (Polish edition: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne in cooperation with the Music and Dance Institute, Krakow 2013). Over thirty years after its first publication, a book considered a classic of dance theater has been translated into Polish. The author of the review stresses that Terpsichore... is not an historical outline in the strict academic sense, but combines many fields of observation of avant-garde dance phenomena in the 1960s and 1970s in the USA. The book includes not only outstanding portraits of artists affiliated with the described movement and sketches of their work, but also fragments of interviews with the artists.

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Myśli poruszone – gdy teoria spotyka praktykę

Author(s): Julia Hoczyk / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 124/2014

Julia Hoczyk reviews an anthology published by the Ha!art Corporation, Awareness of Movement: Texts on Contemporary Dance, edited by Jadwiga Majewska (Krakow, 2013). The author details the structure of the publication, which recalls a course reader. Hoczyk points out the solid editorial work, which is visible, for instance, in the precisely constructed ties between the various texts and sections. She also notes that the anthology, though aimed at a limited group of dance artists, critics, and researchers, is a fine source of inspiration, analysis, and methodology.

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Nie ma dla nas teatru. Z Igą Gańczarczyk rozmawia Marta Bryś

Author(s): Marta Brys / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 123/2014

In conversation with Marta Bryś, Iga Gańczarczyk speaks of working on two plays using children: Piccolo Coro dell’Europa (premiere: 19.07.2013) and Clearly You Have Never Been a 13-Year-Old Girl, Sir(premiere: 19.07.2014), produced at Krakow's Łaźnia Nowa Theater. The slowly evolving issues and forms of the performances and the script, which was constructed during the various rehearsals, allowed the director to take a less infantile approach to children's problems and their way of understanding the world. A "children's" theater thus conceived could be treated on the same level as other projects dealing with social issues.

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Odys pohańbiony

Author(s): Klaudia Las / Language(s): / Issue: 127-128/2015

Klaudia Laś reviews the play Kajzar: A 1982 Odyssey, directed by Maciej Podstawny (dramaturgy: Zuzanna Bojda, Dorota Semenowicz, Maciej Podstawny; Ludwik Solski Polski Theater in Tarnów, premiere: 26.03.2015). The world premiere of three unperformed plays – +++ (Three Crosses), The Hair of the Fool, and Continuation, dappled with fragments from other texts by Kajzar – is, in the author's view, an attempt to assemble almost the entire oeuvre of this writer into one story, and simultaneously it is a reflection upon his identity. The interpretive key is the artist's biography, presented in the context of the Odysseus myth.

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Polski teatr żydowski

Author(s): Marta Brys / Language(s): / Issue: 127-128/2015

Marta Bryś reviews two plays performed at the Jewish Theater in Warsaw – Maja Kleczewska's Dybbuk (premiere: 17.04.2015) and Non-existent Families, or: Anonymous Polish Jewsby Wojciech Klemm (premiere: 28.03.2015). In describing Kleczewska's play, the author notes that the director has foregone the powerful means of expression usually found in her theater. She has made a melancholy performance that poses no important questions and avoids confrontation, preferring to offer the audience a safe sense of sadness. Klemm's intimate production tackles the issue of discovering Jewish identity. Bryś sees it as less than radical, and inappropriate to the current socio-political situation. She does note interesting strands in either production, however, which could add nuances to the issues they address.

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