A scene from Happy, Art Stations Foundation, photo by Kacper Lipiński
The Polish dance events of the Klopsztanga programme focus around the Tanzfestival in Bielefeld. The festival opens with a showing of the Minus 2 performance, choreographed and directed by Ohad Naharin and performed by the Polish Dance Theatre. Following Minus 2, Teatr Tańca Zawirowania stage their Zbliżenia / Close-ups and Fuera de campo performances.
Continuing the series in Bielefeld is the ballet company of Poznań’s Teatr Wielki, which presents three showings as part of an evening entitled Black&White. The sequences have been choreographed by three artists, in cooperation with the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company: Jacek Przybyłowicz, Itzik Galila and Remi Be’er. The noteworthy work by Przybyłowicz, A Few Short Sequences employes visual projections designed by Katarzyna Kozyra and gives an unexpected blend of contemporary dance and baroque music. In Things I Told Nobody, Itzik Galili has the Poznań dancers perform a surrrealist choreography to the sounds of Vivaldi, Mozart, Haendel and Satie and Rami Be’er presents an intimate duo entitled Butterflies.
Another noteworthy Tanzfestival event is the performance entitled Windows, choreographed by the Polish Izadora Weiss. Weiss is the artistic director of Bałtycki Teatr Tańca and her company presents dance sequences choreographed to the music of Mozart, Marais, Bach, as well as a piece composed especially for the company by Leszek Możdżer. In addition to the sequences directed by Weiss, the Bałtycki Teatr Tańca presents choreography transmitted to the group by the Czech choreographer, Jiří Kylián, and a performance entitled Eurasia.
The Klopsztanga showings in Germany testify to an ongoing and fruitful cooperation between Polish and international artists of the dance genre. Choreographer and dancer Anita Wach stages her newest solo piece For 2'31", inspired by Johnny Thunder’s song I am Alive. Wach created the piece in cooperation with Bojan Jablanovec from Slovenia, the founder of an acclaimed dance company Via Negativa, and For 2'31" is a coproduction of the German tanzhaus NRW. In the performance, Anita Wach pictures the way in which experience is imprinted on the body and proposes a reflection on the relations between the stage and everyday life.
Another international dance event on the Klopsztanga programme is the German premiere of Happy, choreographed by British Nigel Chamock, one of the founders of the contemporary dance legend, the DV8. Charnock's show brings together nine dancers whose movements are characterised by sudden gestures that are at times violent, but also quite lyrical and humorous. The choroegraphy expounds upon a special Polish element based on Charnock's observations and experiences living in the country for short periods of time over recent years as he worked with various dance troupes staging shows. The choreographer does not aim to show Poles how they are, but, rather, to show Poles how they are perceived by their fellow European citizens. Chamock has created the piece together with dancers from the Art Stations Foundation in Poznań, and following its premiere in London in 2009, the show has travelled to Poland, the Czech Republic and Spain.
Düsseldorf and Dortmund audiences are offered the chance to see Czerwona trawa / Red Grass, a performance from the independent Dada von Bzdülöw theatre company. The Gdańsk-based group founded by Katarzyna Chmielewska and Leszek Bzdyl has based their highly improvisational piece on the L’Herbe rouge novel from Boris Vian.
The festival of Polish dance is on the programme of the Klopsztanga project and it runs from the 22nd of May until the 20th of July, 2012. The project is part of the Klopsztanga 2012 cultural programme promoting Polish culture across Germany's North Rhine-Westphalia and German-Polish relations through the arts.
Editor: SRS
Source: klopsztanga.de