The Chorus of Women has been developed by the Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute in Warsaw as part of director Marta Górnicka's innovative artistic project. The director aims to revive the chorus in contemporary drama, seeking an expressive new voice from the feminist perspective.
As the Chorus shouts, whispers and cajoles, the texts the members utter take on moving qualities of a musical score. Górnicka excerpts Sophocles' Antigone and works of Barthes, Foucault, de Beauvoir and everyday phrases. She strives for tragic dramatic dimensions brought forth by the classical chorus, while transforming its collective voice into an expressive instrument. Magnificat and its predecessor, This Is the Chorus Speaking, are theatre experiments utilising memory, music, voice, sound, gender, identity, contrast and protest.
The director explains:
Contemporary drama broke with the chorus, and it thus deprived itself of a certain dimension of tragedy. We need to return the chorus to the stage and find new forms of it presence in the theatre, we have to bring women back into the chorus. The Chorus of Women transforms language into a voice and incites its subversive powers.
The project began with open casting in December, 2009. The project's first installation, This Is the Chorus Speaking: Only 6 to 8 Hours, Only 6 to 8 Hours… involved 20 women of various ages and professions. Górnicka chose a cast that contests clichéd images of femininity and the ideals of beauty, and did not require acting or musical backgrounds from the members of her Chorus.
Following the premiere performance, Joanna Derkaczew commented in her review for Gazeta Wyborcza:
The members of the chorus stand in a tight pack, and take on combative poses. Then they disperse, stumble to the ground and regather in small groups, merrily swaying their little hips. Joyous kindergarteners, seducers, chicks, girlies and amazons – any fantasy can be formed out of this feminine mass. They sing cake recipies, instruction-songs for "bad-only-when-necessary-girls" (like April Stewens’ Teach Me Tiger), advert slogans, and texts inspired by the classic Antigone or Simone de Beauvoir. Infantile voices, melodious, soft, and dark voices. A hoarseness which masks an erotic invitation, a gravelly voice which conceals a life no one could envy. Each voice provokes us to ask what made its feminine owner choose to stand in this angry and rebellious chorus.
Magnificat is the second performance by Górnicka and the Chorus of Women. It proclaims women's positions to the Catholic Church's authority, with performers confronting Holy Mary, iconic images of femininity and Bible quotes, as well as recipe instructions and texts on femininity from Elfriede Jelinek and from Adam Mickiewicz, Poland’s greatest Romantic author. Fragments from the Maenads mix with press quotes, computer noise and the photo-flash crackles, and rhythmically organised speech blends with pop phrasing and sacred music's traditional forms.
Magnificat was awarded the Grand Prix of Poland’s annual Festival of Small Theatre Forms, KONTRAPUNKT 2012, earlier this year. The Chorus took Magnificat to the Staatstheater Braunschweig on the 17th and 18th of November 2012, at a festival including performances from Martia Grünheit, Simon Kubisch (Germany), Katy Hernan, Adrien Rupp (Switzerland), Maren E. Bjrseth, Marjolijn van Heemstra (Netherlands), Ruth Rosenthal, Xaviera Klaine (France-Israel) and Csaby Polgár (Hungary). The Chorus of Women opens their tour of France and Belgium on the 22nd of November, performing in six cities in six days, including Rennes, Arras, Douai and Villeneuve d'Ascq as part of the La Rose des Vents festival.
In a new development of Górnicka's concept, the Zbigniew Raszewski Institute is rehearsing the director's project, the Chorus of Men, scheduled to premiere in January 2013.
Editor: SRS
Source: press relaese