Revolutions Festival Panel and Gallery Exhibit: Poland

Poland in the 1980s: Searching for Revolution in Dance

A DNA Gallery Exhibit

January 7 - February 14, 2010

Polish Dance in the 1980s: Silence or Revolution?

A Polish/American Dance Panel Series

January 12-14, 2010

Dance New Amsterdam (DNA) is pleased to announce the multifaceted project Poland in the 1980s: Searching for Revolution in Dance – Polish Dance in the 1980s: Silence or Revolution?, as part of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts’ Revolution through the Performing Arts in Central and Eastern Europe Festival. The five-month long multidisciplinary Revolutions Festival (November 6, 2009 – March 31, 2010) explores the revolutionary mindset of performing artists in Central and Eastern Europe through different works of art: exhibitions, performances in theater, music and dance, as well as film screenings, readings, symposia, and other ancillary events throughout New York City. The Festival will coincide with the 20th anniversary of the fall of communism, and will focus on select countries, including the Czech Republic, Slovenia, former East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania. Visit www.nypl.org for more information on Performing Revolution in Central and Eastern Europe.

Coinciding with DNA’s panel discussions will be a six-week gallery installation/exhibit which will include imagery, both static and moving representing the 1980’s dance movement. The gallery exhibit will be curated by experts including Dr. Jacek Łuminski, George Jackson and Paul Gordan Emerson.

The project is a Polish/American exchange meant to critique and publicly discuss and present findings about Poland’s revolution in dance in the 1980’s and to initiate a conversation about the role of dance in communicating during times of revolution across the globe.

Polish/American Dance Panel Series (3 panels)

January 12-14 at 5:00pm

FREE

Panel 1: Polish Dance in the 1980s: Silence or Revolution? (January 12)

Panel 2: East and Central Europe: Revolution through Dance (January 13)

Panel 3: World Revolutions (January 14)

Dance New Amsterdam presents three panels and a multimedia art exhibit intended to provoke discourse about Poland’s revolution in dance during the late 20th century. The panel discussions will be moderated by Dance New Amsterdam’s Executive Director, Catherine Peila, and include a contingent of Polish and American academics, historians, critics, and practitioners specializing in Polish dance and dance history. The first panel will focus solely on Poland, while the second will have representatives from other East and Central European countries; the third includes world Revolutions representatives.

The guest speakers for the opening panel of Polish Dance in the 1980s: Silence or Revolution? include Roman Pawłowski (chief theater and dance critic for Gazeta Wyborcza), Roman Arndt (dance historian), Dr. Agnieszka Jelewska (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań), and Dr. Jacek Łuminski (Founder/Executive Director of Silesian Dance Theatre and Dean of the Dance-Theater Department, State Drama School in Krakow). American guests include George Jackson, Allen Kuharski, Thomas DeFranz, and Anya Peterson-Royce.

The second panel in this series, East and Central Europe: Revolution through Dance, includes cultural participants from partnering Performing Revolutions Festival countries including guests: Bonnie Sue Stein of GOH Productions (USA/Czech Republic) and Ivan Talijancic of WaxFactory (Croatia), Priit Raud (Estonia) Donald McDonagh (USA) along with guests from Romania, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Poland, and Germany. This discussion taps into a larger discussion of each country’s limitations and freedoms; guests will address change as represented through choreographic and movement vocabularies.

For the concluding panel, World Revolutions, artists and presenters from around the world (South Africa, Israel, India, the wider European Union and the Baltics) will have a round table discussion about their work, specifically, the process, goals and effectiveness of utilizing performance as a means of expression throughout their native country’s revolutions. Additional speakers will include Sduduzo Ka-Mbili (South Africa), Nora Chipaumire (Zimbabwe), Gaby Aldor (Israel), George Jackson (China/United States), Daria Fain (France) and Donald McDonagh (United States) among others.

The panels will be simulcast online with a live blog for offsite audience interaction.

Catherine Peila, Executive Director of Dance New Amsterdam, was initially a music and theater producer and performance artist focused on political issues through guerilla style performance. Her work in arts administration, program development, producing and research of culture and dance in East Central Europe has been ongoing since the 1980’s. She was present during the buildup and initiation of the war in former Yugoslavia while researching the role of the performing arts in Shamanic/Catholic healing. She returned to Serbia to lead workshops in Shamanic Practice/Performance Elements and Administrative Solutions in a refugee camp for war veterans and traumatized youth in Subotica, Serbia. During this time of violence and trauma she experienced firsthand the vital role of the arts pre- through post- violent revolution. Her producing and cultural management career began in Seattle, Washington in the late ‘70’s and spans New York, Europe (EU), South American and Israel. She moved to Poland in 1993 to work with executive director and choreographer of the Silesian Dance Theater, Jacek Łuminski, initiating programs and processes with artists and governments to develop non-profit administrative structures and programs to develop and sustain contemporary dance and the performing arts in the former communist countries. As Executive Director of DNA she continues her role as producer/administrator/researcher of the role of the arts in society. She supports artists and cultural advocates, believing their performance and research is imperative for their roles as world change agents.

Roman Pawlowski is a theater critic and journalist for Poland’s premier daily Gazeta Wyborcza, where he has published since 1994. He was the first performing arts critic in Poland to focus on the new contemporary dance movement during the early 1990s, working with the Silesian Dance Theatre to develop workshops and programs to foster new generations of Polish dance critics. He is a graduate of the Jagiellonian University in Cracow, where he studied drama theory with professors Jan Blonski, Nina Kiraly, Jozef Tischner, and others. His own theories of theater were developed in connection with Polish alternative groups of the 1970s and 1980s – such as the Movement Academy, Teatr Prowizorium, and the Theatre of the Eighth Day – as well as with contemporary European dramaturgy, which he experienced first-hand at festivals in Edinburgh, Avignon, and Berlin. In 2003, Pawlowski edited an anthology of new Polish drama titled Pokolenie porno i inne niesmaczne utwory teatralne (Generation Porno and Other Disgusting Plays), which sold a record number of over 5,000 copies. He has won the Zbigniew Raszewski Award for Best Press Critic, and collaborates on a permanent basis with Notatnik Teatralny and Channel 2 of the Polish Radio.

Roman Arndt graduated in Polish Philology from Wyzsza Szkola Pedagogiczna in Opole, and has also studied ballet pedagogy at the Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw, and theater studies, film studies, and media studies at Ruhr University Bochum in Germany. He was the assistant choreographer for the European Dance Meetings of Secondary Education Companies in Bochum in 1993, and went on to develop a course in dance studies at Ruhr University. Presently, he is a lecturer at the Folkwang-Hochschule Essen and at the Ludwik Solski Academy for the Dramatic Arts in Krakow. Since 1995, he has worked with the Silesian Dance Theatre to develop the “Return to Tradition” project, which initiated the study of post-WWII Polish dance history.

Jacek Luminski has studied and performed at the Chopin University of Music, the State Jewish Theatre in Warsaw, and the Society of Fine Arts. He has also studied and performed classical and contemporary dance in Lodz, Warsaw, and other cities in Poland and Germany. In 1991, Mr. Luminski established the Silesian Dance Theatre in Bytom, Silesia, the premiere contemporary dance company in Poland, an institution dedicated to the development and promotion of dance on both domestically and internationally. He has won numerous awards for his unique style, technique, and breathtaking form of dance theater, which is based on the cultural traditions of Polish Jewry and Polish folklore. He has spent the last 35 years not only dancing and creating performances, but also researching the international dance field and writing for dance publications.

Agnieszka Jelewska is Assistant Professor in the Theatre and Drama Department and in the Faculty of Polish and Classical Philosophy at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, as well as Lecturer at the National Theatre Academy in Kraków and the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan. She has received scholarships from the Foundation for Polish Science (2005) and Society for Theatre Research in London (2003); has participated in the International School for Theatre Anthropology; and has translated Eugenio Barba’s theoretical writings. From 2002 to 2004 she was a Visiting Research Scholar and lecturer at the University of Kent in Great Britain. She has published widely in such journals Pamietnik Teatralny and Teatr, and is the author Craig. Mit sztuki I teatru (Craig: The Myth of Art and Theater; Warsaw 2007).

DNA’s Polish Dance in the 1980s: Silence or Revolution? was developed in conjunction with the 2009 Silesian Dance Theatre’s Understanding Dance conference in Poland, and supported by Trust for Mutual Understanding, American Express, Polish Cultural Institute in New York and is presented in partnership with the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Gallery Exhibit in Conjunction:

Poland in the 1980s: Searching for Revolution in Dance

January 7 - February 14

Opening Celebrations: January 7, 7:00pm and January 12, 4:30pm (coinciding with the conference)

DNA’s Gallery Hours are 9am – 9pm Monday – Sunday.

FREE

The six-week gallery exhibit will feature Polish historical images documented through video, film, and photography documenting the dancers response during Poland’s revolutionary period in the 1980’s. This exhibit coincides with panel discussions addressing dance and revolution in Poland, the E/CE and globally from January 12th through the 14th, 2010.

The events are made possible through generous support from the Trust for Mutual Understanding, the Polish Cultural Institute in New York, American Express, and the Silesian Dance Theatre/ State Drama Academy in Poland.

DNA’s program is a part of the performing arts festival marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, presented by The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts in partnership with key New York City cultural organizations and academic institutions, November 2009–March 2010. www.performingrevolution.org

DNA’s installation of Poland in the1980s: Searching for Revolution in Dance was developed in conjunction with the 2009 Silesian Dance Theatre’s Understanding Dance conference in Poland, and supported by Trust for Mutual Understanding, American Express, Polish Cultural Institute in New York and is presented in partnership with the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. DNA’s installation of Poland in the 1980s: Searching for Revolution in Dance was also funded, in part, by a grant from New York State Assemblymember Deborah J. Glick through the NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

Photo by: Robert Frackowiak