Prologue, an interactive performance choreographed for 15 spectators and an empty tribune was one of the most original undertakings of last year’s Reminiscences Festival in Kraków. The project is an experimental meta-theatrical piece that invites audiences to create the show that they partake in, and aims to be a form on research on the forming of society and its rituals.
The young director’s work touches upon the most relevant and current issues and through transgressing the boundary between the performer and the viewers, it draws attention to the structures and anti-structures of society. A specific characteristic of Ziemilski’s project is the way in which he confronts the audience with very precise rules that in turn allow the participants to make specific choices. In a reality threatened by stereotypes and routine, the young director creates a choreography score for a model critical and philosophical space, in which pluralism has a central value. Prologue is thus at once a performance and an activity, a possibility and a decision, and both a solo show and a social group dance piece.
The performance had its premiere showing in October, 2011 at Kraków’s Reminiscencje Teatralne (Theatrical Reminiscences) festival. It was subsequently shown in Warsaw, at the State Theatre Academy’s Collegium Nobilium on the 28th of April, 2012. Prologue was also shown at the Trouble 8 festival in Belgium on the 30th of May and the 1st of June 2012.
Wojtek Ziemilski is a graduate of the theatre direction programme at the gulbenkian Foundation in Lisboa. Since his return to Poland in 2009 he has been hailed one of the most interesting artists of the young generation. He is the author of a performance entitled Small Narration, based on the personal history of his own grandfather, count Wojciech Dzieduszycki - a recognised journalist and music critic whose good name was recently darkened upon the discovery of his collaboration with SB, Poland’s secret police of the communist era. Ziemilski also collaborated with Komuna Warszawa on the Map project and he authored a visual installation entitled Actors at the TR Warszawa. He regularly cooperates with Krytyka Polityczna, komuna// warszawa, Warsaw’s Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, and the Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute. He runs his own blog on contemporary art (new-art.blogspot.com) and posts in a daily photo-column on Krytyka Polityczna’s website.
Editor: SRS
Source: www.teatrochoty.pl, klopsztanga.de
Schedule of Prologue showings in Essen:
14th September 2012: 6.30 pm, 8 pm and 9.30 pm
15th of September 2012: 2 pm, 3.30 pm, 6.30 pm, 8 pm and 9.30 pm
16th of September, 2012: 2 pm, 3.30 pm, 6.30 pm, 8 pm and 9.30 pm
At the PACT Zollverein Bullmannaue 20a 45327, Essen
duration: 45 minutes