We meet in the practice and we practice the meeting.
Stepping on the ancestors’ shoulders,
we delve into the present
and transform the future.

Can you (and how) juxtapose at the same time such seemingly distant dance worlds as Brazilian samba, Armenian kochari, Georgian svanuri and Polish oberek? The Yanka Rudzka Project: POLYPHONIES joined artists of Armenia, Brazil, Georgia and Poland in a journey to the sources and back. Studying work of YANKA RUDZKA – Polish dancer who in the 50s.of XXc. left for Brazil to become the seminal figure of the local scene – and by her belief that contemporary culture cannot thrive without a broad recognition of its traditional roots, we shared a dance practice stemming from traditional, non-stylized dance cultures of our four countries. And we posed questions about the significance of these traditions for contemporary choreography. Referring to the communal, ecstatic and transgressive dimensions of dance, the final choreography, composed from elements of all the dance traditions explored, was placed in the context of techno culture. Thus, taking traditional dance into a surprising context, looking at techno culture as the new folk, the performance explored the ecstatic and social dimension of dance while celebrating its transformative power.

The starting point for the performance was born in Caucasus musical concept of polyphony – an interesting metaphor of our identity – cultural and national, personal and artistic, – identity in its very own way polyphonic, because composed of many layers and many (often distant, even contradictory) elements – leading us to the idea of polyphonic body – the body of coexisting voices (those of individuals as well as those borrowed from contemporary and traditional culture); the body struggling with the excess of voices, noise, cacophony. And also to the “polyphonic” composition of movement – the “melody” of dance composed by many different bodies (voices) united in a dance whirl.

International team of THE YANKA RUDZKA PROJECT embarked on a journey guided by the questions: where do we come from? What does our dance tradition entail—what narratives, what values, what formal elements that can potentially inspire contemporary choreographic practice? The imperative of the proposed journey and its undeniable value is the meeting of cultures —meeting through practice, which enables us to comprehensively explore, understand, and confront the unknown, foreign culture but also – with our own. The project allowed a unique meeting with one’s own tradition, perceived and experience through the eyes (and bodies) of the Other, and led to – often unexpected – discovery of that traditional culture for contemporary choreographic practice.

CONCEPT
Joanna Leśnierowska

COMPOSITION
Joanna Leśnierowska & Janusz Orlik in collaboration with dancers

DANCE
Anderson Danttas, Helena Ganjalyan, Karen Khachatryan, Agnieszka Kryst, Kote Liparteliani, Janusz Orlik, Neemias Santana, Katarzyna Sitarz, Hasmik Tangyan, Megi Zarkua

THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL COACHING
Piotr Zgorzelski
(Polish traditional dances)

Artavazd Ayvazyan
(Armenian dances)

Soso Kopaleishvili
(Georgian dances)

Katarzyna Sitarz
(voice)

DRAMATURGY AND LIGHTING
Joanna Leśnierowska

SOUNDSCAPE
Janusz Orlik

GRAPHIC DESIGN
Michał Łuczak

TECHNICAL REALIZATION
Łukasz Kędzierski

COORDINATION
Harutyun Alpetyan (Armenia)
Salome Sordia (Georgia)

PRODUCTION
Marta Harasimowicz and Mikołaj Maciejewski
Art Stations Foundation by Grażyna Kulczyk in cooperation with Institute of Music and Dance in Warsaw and East European Performing Arts Platform.

photos

Maciej Zakrzewski i Katarzyna Kłudczyńska