The performance uses tools of experimental dance and theatre, and takes the closing of the libretto for Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring as its starting point.
Based on testimonies of contemporary women gathered by the artists, and the formula of the fairy tale and the witch. The production tells of strategies for abusing the female body, and deconstructs and transforms the power/violence narratives and mechanisms present in culture today. It also takes the stereotypical figure of the victim as a woman who is ”naturally” vulnerable to harm and looks for alternative stories of women’s bodies, designing a space for emancipation and a new mythology.
Fragments of the choreography are inspired with the Sacrificial Dance from Nijinsky’s The Rite of Spring (1913) based on historical reconstruction Sacre #2 by Dominique Brun (2014) as conveyed by Clarisse Chanel.
Strobe lights and loud music are used in the performance.
Concept, direction, choreography: Renata Piotrowska-Auffret
Creation and performance: Magdalena Fejdasz, Aleksandra Osowicz, Katarzyna Sikora
Dramaturg and scriptwriter: Anka Herbut
Music: Marcin Janus
Costume: Maja Skrzypek
Lighting and stage design: Aleksandr Prowaliński
Research: Dominique Brun, Clarisse Chanel, Magdalena Frankowicz, Zuzanna Jusińska, Kama Królikowska, Natalia Oniśk, Agnieszka Sikorska, Mary Szydłowska, Katarzyna Sypniewska, Monika Turemka
The project is co-financed from the Founds of the Municipality of Kraków.
Co-produced by Kroki Festival.
Photo: Monika Stolarska
Reviews
Fragment from a review by Alicja Müller Among the divine dances – new choreography at the 12th Divine Comedy Festival on taniecPOLSKA.pl (January 2020):
The artist frees the Chosen from the necessity of „overdancing” herself to death and turns the girl’s madness into a choreographic representation of the female agency, which is no longer forced to fulfil male fantasies and sacrifice her body on the patriarchal altar. (…)
Performers who are dancing on the stage, Katarzyna Sikora, Aleksandra Osowicz and Magdalena Fejdasz, embody the energy of the emancipated warriors that are doing feminist witchcraft on the ruins of the old order. The androcentric world crumbles under their feet and the myth of Logos collapses so that the body could finally speak and leave the oppressive system in which it’s being tamed. Read more
Fragment from a review by Przemek Gulda on guldapoleca (December 2019):
Cracow, Divine Comedy Festival. Performance about appriopating feminity. Artists confront themselves with Nijinsky’s choreography and create its female version: trembling does not mean fear, but the potential for change and a victim became a subject. It is worrying that the first word (a victim) has only female gender in polish and for the second one (subject) it is difficult to find one. And that female sexual and reproductive organs have names after men. Movement in a show is not obvious, it goes beyond the stereotypes and schema of a beauty. Final scene is an expressive symbol of women’s power and community. Read more
Fragment from a review by Marcelina Obarska from Fantasy about the role of art. Divine Comedy 2019 on Culture.pl (December 2019):
There is in Flatland of limp muscles rage and power (…). By modulating voices as demonic frogs, artists declaim fantasy about the country in which „you could punch dicks in a ticket-puncher”. The vision is so brillant and given in such an abstract way that it makes us laugh but this vision was born from real (and not funny at all) tiredness of omnipresent male domination.
Flatland of limp muscles is full of dignity. Read more