We are proud to present a Krakow premiere of this dance performance.
In this performance, four dancers invite the audience to visit a performative installation. It’s a space combining cabaret, circus, kinder ball, and modern art exhibition. The starting point for this piece is the biography and works of Valeska Gert. Her peculiar artistic practice that was detached from all conventionalities meets our contemporary, unstable reality and the everyday life of modern freelancers. Perhaps the language of grotesque might be the answer to the shaky nature of our times?
Valeska Gert’s performed solo movement miniatures carrying a solid dose of eccentricity and bizarre facial expression. In her pieces she deformed reality, striving for absurdity and abstraction, using her own body as an instrument. Considered by some a precursor of avant-garde performance art, she never really made it to dance mainstream.
VALESKA VALESKA VALESKA VALSKA is a collage based on documentary materials from Gert’s biography, (re)playing facts and made-up images. It’s a time capsule piece handled by performers of grotesque presence who raise important topics, not necessarily in a serious way.
- Concept, direction, choreography: Dominika Knapik;
- Choreographer’s assistant: Dominik Więcek;
- Creation, performance: Daniela Komędera-Miśkiewicz, Dominika Wiak, Dominik Więcek, Monika Witkowska;
- Script, dramaturgy, translations: Patrycja Kowańska;
- Lighting director, video: Wolfgang Macher;
- Music: Doministry Dominik Strycharski;
- Costumes: Dominik Więcek;
- Production manager: Alicja Berejowska (Perform for Change);
- Premiere: November 25, 2022.
Production: Performa Foundation;
Partners: Cultural Center in Lublin, Lublin Dance Theatre, Łaźnia Nowa Theatre, Utopia House – International Center of Empathy, Institute of Jerzy Grotowski;
Co-organizer: Tadeusz Kantor's Centre for Documentation Cricoteka in Krakow.
The project was selected by an international jury as part of this years Open Call supported by the Dutch Humanitarian Fund.
The premiere of the performance is co-financed by the National Institute of Music and Dance as part of its own program Choreographic Orders 2022, financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, and implemented thanks to the support of a private sponsor – Dominika Knapik. Special thanks to Krakow Choreographic Center, Critical Education Association, Mrs. Kamila Kamińska and Mr. Marek Gluziński.
This event is part of FestivALT 2023 organized as part of the project: "MultiMemo. Multidirectional Memory: Remembering for Social Justice" with the support of the European Union through the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) Program (2021–2027).
