rooms by the sea
exercises in listening
10 years after the premiere of …/rooms by the sea/ exercises in looking, once again I wished to set off. Inspired by the rich research within the project Performance: Conservation Materiality Knowledge I decided to put Hopperesque glasses once more and witness 5 characters stubbornly traversing landscapes thick with micro gestures and sounds. We juxtaposed the outer and inner worlds, offering each other insights into ambiguous, yet at the same time so well known to us states of suspension, alienation, distance (also from each other), and longing for what is ungraspable and what escapes words. Celebrating at the same time the 10th anniversary of the Cracow Choreographic Center, we reactivated the choreographic language I have been developing for more than a decade, seeking physical and visual representation for the idea of a polyphonic body in which many voices do coexis, and struggle with these voices in excess, cacophony, noise. Continuing the exploration of the intersection of choreography and visual arts, we simultaneously asked where we have been headed several years after the global experience of forced isolation, and – as Johnathan Jones proclaimed in The Guardian (April 2020) – have we we still felt trapped in Hopper’s images? And after decades of alienation by choice, do we desire and do we know how to hear each other and be together again ?”
The performance was accompanied by the set of postcards (leporello style souvenir from the journey) with pictures by Anna Zielińska
work is designed for the open spaces as performative durational installation as well as for stage/frontal audience settings..
The end of all that we know
And our alignment with it,
with all that cacophonic jazz and
with the siren whisps
dictates us path and rhythm.
Oh World
That constantly falls into pieces –
you against and
you to meet
– off we set!
What’s ahead
appears barely an afterimage
or
the tip of an iceberg
stubbornly drifting in the distance.
What’s behind
freezes out of breath
just about to lose its form
exposed to the inexorable influence
of time, gravity and distance.
Balancing
in The In-Between
we indulge in the successive tides
celebrating
each step on the way
that leads us through a landscape woven
of images and sounds
rippling.
Listening to the breath of the night
we keep calling each other
throwing ourselves into storm
and facing boldly the waves
aware that
we’ve already passed the moment,
at which we can turn back.
Oh World
that endlessly baits us with mirages,
loosen your embrace,
let us go as we also let!
Oh World
that keeps passing under our eyelids –
let us bow to each other, and
Let us continue
– there!
Where we never arrive,
Where we never cease heading.
premiere on August 3rd in the frame of Cracow Dance Festival
Credits:
concept/choreography/ images and space : Joanna Leśnierowska
Soundscape and voice work: Katarzyna Sitarz
movement and performance: Karol Miękina, Piotr Skalski, Monika Szpunar, Monika Węgrzynowicz, Dominika Wiak
movement kick off coaching: Janusz Orlik
costumes: Monika Węgrzynowicz (with yellow jacket by Michiel Keuper / from „blur”)
recordings and sound mastering Brave Records
graphics: Michał Andrzej Łuczak, Anna Zielińska photoholicstudio.pl
production managers: Agnieszka Barańska-Kozik, Aleksandra Honza
produced by: KCC – Nowa Huta Cultural Center, Joanna Leśnierowska SFX
photos by Klaudyna Schubert
