baz@rt / Europe Learning - Frankfurt meets Krakow - 1baz@rt / Europe Learning - Frankfurt meets Krakow - 2

baz@rt / Europe Learning - Frankfurt meets Krakow

[ Europe Learning ]
Programme Europe Learning – Frankfurt meets Krakow
schmidtstrasse12, Frankfurt on the Main
9-11 December 2005


Friday, 9 December
8:15 p.m.: Opening
“Komponenten”
Guest performance Stary Teatr, Cracow
A play by Małgorzata Owsiany, directed by Michał Borczuch.
After the performance: Party with DJ Mario from the Club der polnischen Versager (Club of Polish Failures), Berlin

The play “Komponenty” by Małgorzata Owsiany was staged at the baz@art festival by Michał Borczuch, a young Polish director.

Because of a lack of perspective and the feeling of powerlessness and boredom in their high-rise environment, the play’s protagonists resort to drugs. A sandbox turns into a human habitat, where they act out all fears connected with their future adult life. High above them, airplanes cross the sky again and again – a symbol representing the protagonists’ obsessive dream of taking flight into a better world. But the problem raised by this play is less the protagonists’ drug addiction, it is rather their inability to experience their own reality in an authentic way. The director and the actors search for the truth of the characters in the disruption that emerges from putting together different components: small everyday experiences, the characters’ modes of behaviour, and violated language.

German translation of “Komponenty”: Olaf Kühl


Saturday, 10 December
8:15 p.m.: Scenic Reading
“Dunkel allerorten”
A play by Paweł Sala, directed by Paweł Miśkiewicz

The director Paweł Miśkiewicz will develop the scenic reading with actors from schauspielfrankfurt within a week. The textual basis is the drama “Ciemno wszędzie...” (Darkness everywhere) by Paweł Sala, which won the drama contest of this year’s “baz@rt” festival (Cracow). A summary written by the author can be downloaded here

10 p.m.:
“Born in Kattowitz – Urodzony w Katowicach"
Late night performance with the Club der polnischen Versager (Club of Polish Failures) from Berlin, and the Gerd Schneider Gesellschaft (Gerd Schneider Society) from Frankfurt on the Main and others

The Gerd Schneider Gesellschaft and members of the Club der polnischen Versager (Club of Polish Failures), Berlin, present a humorous late night performance.


Sunday, 11 December
5 p.m.:
Polish Theatre Today
Discussion meeting with video examples, followed by a Polish dinner

Discussion forum with specific visual aids (video feeds) on the development and perspectives of contemporary Polish theatre and of contemporary Polish dramatic art. Idea and moderation: Grzegorz Niziołek.
Talks by three well-known Polish theatre critics: Małgorzata Dziewulska, Piotr Gruszczyński und Grzegorz Niziołek.

Over the last decade, Polish theatre experienced a number of startling directional debuts, a redesign of the repertoire profile, and a radical change in alternative theatre forms. Many of these phenomena are effects of the political transformation after the turnaround of 1989: the opening of the theatre to the West as well as to the East and the simultaneous creative development of the lively Polish theatre traditions (which is frequently unmentioned in today’s discussions). For 15 years, Polish theatre has been searching for its place in society, which triggered several heated debates (one of which raised the issue of the so-called new brutalism) and resulted in a revision of conventional assessment criteria. In recent years, a strong polarisation of modes of reception and the impossibility to reduce them to a common denominator gave rise to an almost “military” climate in Polish theatre. The situation is a little different today: the audience has recovered from the shock of new dramaturgy. The stage directors that debuted in the second half of the 1990s are no longer seen as mere “students of Krystian Lupa”. They have since gained artistic independence and renown. By now, younger and even more “brutal” artists have appeared next to them. The time has come to redraw the map of Polish theatre.
Venues
Kraków: Stary Teatr / Frankfurt on the Main: schauspielfrankfurt (schmidtstrasse12)
Dates
Kraków: “baz@rt” festival, 4-8 Nov. 05
Frankfurt/Main: festival "Europe Learning - Frankfurt meets Krakow", 9-11 Dec. 05
Participating Institutions
Stary Teatr, Kraków
schauspielfrankfurt, Frankfurt/Main
Programme Europe Learning – Frankfurt meets Krakow

Friday, 9 December
8:15 pm: Opening
"Komponenten" (Components)
Guest performance Stary Teatr, Cracow

Saturday, 10 December
8:15 pm: Scenic reading
"Dunkel allerorten" (Darkness Everywhere)
10:00 pm: Late night performance
"Born in Kattowitz – Urodzony w Katowicach"

Sunday, 11 December
5 p.m.: Discussion
"Polnisches Theater heute" (Polish theatre today)



photos © Kirsti Krügener