Agnieszka Konieczna and Cezary Kosiński in a scene from 2008: Macbeth
An audience of more than 30 thousand spectators viewed the variety of Polska Arts events by Polish artists which were scattered across concert halls, art centres, a huge aircraft loft and little alleys and city squares of Edinburgh
As part of the Polska Arts project produced the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, visitors and dwellers of the Scottish capital were presented with 177 events in theatre, dance, music, visual arts and film, from some of Poland’s top and upcoming artists. Poland marked its presence at four summer festivals: the Edinburgh International Festival, the Edinburgh Fringe, the Edinburgh Jazz&Blues Festival and the Edinburgh Arts Festival. Various performances and shows met with the enthusiastic reception of the press, with reviews in some leading UK and international titles such as The Guardian, Financial Times, The Independent, The Observer and numerous articles in Scotland’s journals and cultural magazines as The Scotsman, Herald Scotland and The Skinny.
The theatre programme of Polska Arts constituted a particularly distinct highlight of the Edinburgh festivals. 15 productions travelled to the Scottish capital and for the first time in the history of the Edinburgh International Festival, its 65th edition was launched with a Polish performance. 2008: Macbeth, the play directed by Grzegorz Jarzyna with TR Warszawa was streamed live on The Guardian’s internet channel, and it was viewed by a record number of 11 000 spectators. Two Wrocław-based theatre troupes, Teatr ZAR and Teatr Pieśni Kozła (Song of the Goat Theatre) sweeped all of the Edinburgh Fringe main awards. ZAR were presented with the Herald Angel and Total Theatre Awards for their Caeserian Section. Essays on Suicide. Song of the Goat received the festival’s main award, Fringe First and the Herald Archangel Award, and their performance entitled Songs of Lear was also the most starred performance of all the 3000 titles reviewed throughout the festival.
As part of the Polska Arts project, Polish musicians performed a total of 16 concerts. Young instrumentalists of the Polish jazz and avant-garde scene rocked the Edinburgh’s Jazz&Blues Festival. According to a four-star review from the Edinburgh Guide Aga Zaryan "transformed George’s Square into an ocean of tenderness", and the Marcin Wasilewski Trio was presented with four stars by The Scotsman and "the highest mark in musical communication, both with the ensemble and towards the grateful audience". One of the most important events of the Polish programme was the concert residency of the acclaimed London Symphony Orchestra. Throughout the four concerts at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall, the ensemble performed four symphonies by Karol Szymanowski, under the baton of the charismatic Valery Gergiev, with Nicola Benedetti, Toby Spence and Leonidas Kavakos playing the solo parts. According to the critic David Kettle, hearing the lush orchestration and surging climaxes of Szymanowski’s Second Symphony precipitated the question why this piece is so rarely performed. EIF concerts of music from Witold Lutosławski, performed by the Clevelend Orchestra and conducted by Franz Wesler-Most also echoed with much enthusiasm in the press. The American ensemble performed Lutosławski’s Orchestra Concert and Piano Concert at the Usher Hall.
The Edinburgh International Festival was first held in 1947, and it was borne out of a need for the builing of new and free European community. Its founders were striving to "provide a platform for the flowering of the human spirit." Sketching out this political context and underlining the public character of his decisions as an artistic director of the EIF, Jonathan Mills honoured the strong Polish presence while addressing the historic role played out by Poland and the symbolic place it continues to occupy in contemporary thiniking about European identity.
Mark Brown, who summarised the Edinburgh Fringe festival in his article for The Herald Scotland, stated that the very presence of the Song of the Goat Theatre at the Fringe is a sign of the renewing of the festival’s good name.
A review posted on the Broadway Baby online journal recognised the original and politically-engaged performance brought to the festival by another Polish troupe, komuna//warszawa:
(...) at a time when ‘the wind of history is blowing’ there is certainly a need for political engagement in the arts.
Editor: SRS
Source: The Guardian, The Herald Scotland, The Scotsman, culture.pl