Since March 2016 till November 2016, CHOREA Theatre organizes new project "OPEN ZONE". We will perform our spectacles and concerts for students from high-schools from Lodz.
Performance "The Brain" in The Open Zoe Project
date: 3.10.2016 (Monday)
time: 12:00
place: Art_Inkubator in Fabryka Sztuki in Lodz, 3 Tymienieckiego Street
Direction: Tomasz Rodowicz
Script and dramaturgy: Marcin Cecko
Music: Tomasz Krzyżanowski, Marcin Cecko, Kuba Krzewiński, Tomasz Rodowicz
Visuals: Maria Porzyc, Rami Shaya
Stage design: Korbus
Light and sound: Tomasz Krukowski
Costumes: Katarzyna Jasińska, Dominika Krzyżanowska Gorzkiewicz
Cast: Joanna Chmielecka, Małgorzata Lipczyńska, Adrian Bartczak, Janusz Adam Biedrzycki, Robert Wasiewicz
Special thanks to Aloha From Deer for making costumes for the performance.
Premiere: 22-24.11.2013, Szwalnia Theatre, Lodz
Performance for viewers over 16 years of age.
Strobe light is used in the performance.
Directors note:
Nowadays the latest technologies and scientific discoveries have created a very uncomfortable and embarrassing situation in the area of the arts and so-called 'humanities', because they enter without permission into the field of questions and problematics reserved exclusively for the "spiritual" and philosophical sphere of human activity. The matters which, until now, were considered as the exclusive domain of philosophers, artists, theologians, ethicists and prophets, are now being penetrated into by physicists, computer scientists, neurosurgeons, neurophysiologists and neurobiologists.
With the help of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), magnetic resonance tomography (MRT), and the latest generations of CT scanners, researchers and scientists are able to stimulate and define, in a very precise way, the areas of the brain which are responsible for the creativity of the human mind and soul. They can register, manipulate and play with human consciousness and memory. Recently, they even created an artificial brain, giving it a graceful name: "The Organoid".
On the other hand, we are losing all points of reference, in this fluid postmodern void in which we live. Surrounded by a vague, misty state in which all values are relative, with our hands full of the latest gadgets and wonders of technology, we are starting to feel a strong need of building an objective order and finding some constant, solid qualities.
In such a reality, the brain becomes a new oracle, a real hope, and the greatest fetish of the twenty-first century. We're not talking about mind, soul, consciousness or the “Self” - here the definitions are fluid, ambiguous and can be questioned easily. Objectively, the brain is just a one-and-a-half-kilo jelly-like object, which used to be the biggest mystery of mankind (not only from the perspective of evolution, but also that of functionality, creativity, unpredictability and insanity). Finally, we are able to explore this mystery. We can manipulate it, and convert it into a cult object. The brain is a creator of everything in the universe which is not a pure product of nature. (Besides, the brain as a product of nature, is already manipulating nature!) We believe that by deciphering the brain's access codes we can discover absolute truth - unquestionable, measurable, easy to verify, and easy to experiment on.
In our performance, we are asking about the position of the human factor in this situation. Are we able to reduce all the emotions, inter-human relations, and various states of mind and soul into neuronal schemes of electrochemical impulses?
A group of researchers is now finalizing the last stage of a complex project, in which they are exposing their bodies and minds to extreme experimentation. In this final stage of exploration, they are trying to define their own personal perspectives and points of reference, showing the opposition (and helplessness) of the human aspect set against the arrogant ruthlessness of science and bio-techno-ideologies.
Performance "The Bacchae" in the Open Zone Project
date: 23.09.2016 (Friday)
time: 12:00
place: Art_Inkubator in Fabryka Sztuki in Lodz, 3 Tymienieckiego Street
Director: Tomasz Rodowicz
Choreography: Robert M. Hayden
Music: Tomasz Krzyżanowski
Light: Tomasz Krukowski
Sound: Marcin Dobijański
Cast: Joanna Chmielecka, Julia Jakubowska, Majka Justyna / Sara Kozłowska, Małgorzata Lipczyńska, Janusz Adam Biedrzycki, Paweł Korbus, Maciej Maciaszek, Adrian Bartczak / Michał Ratajski
Choir: Joanna Filarska, Sandra Gierzek, Joanna Kłos, Aleksandra Kozioł, Milena Kranik, Justyna Sobieraj-Bednarek, Marta Sterna, Elina Toneva, Paula Tralewska, Tomasz Krzyżanowski
Premiere: 26.03.2012, Szwalnia Theatre, Lodz
“The Bacchae”, directed by Tomasz Rodowicz, constitutes the third and final phase of facing Euripides’ most intriguing drama. It is also an attempt to retell this ambiguous play while using a different approach than the one employed in previous projects.
One of the contributors is the American dancer, choreographer and Musician Robert M. Hayden (long-running Ultima Vez collaborator; he also worked on choreography for CHOREA’s Oratorium Dance Project)
Chorea’s first attempt at “The Bacchae” resulted in the “Bakkus” stage play – an international production which was performed in 2006 in cooperation with Earthfall. This was a story about the conflict between law and religion, a warning against fanaticism on the one hand and the abuses of power on the other, a cautionary tale about the crisis of values and the terror of collective responsibility.
The second part – the “Śpiew Eurypidesa” (“Songs of Euripides”) stage play was a tale about collective madness and a warning against dangerous and bigotry-ridden practices. In a collective rapture, a group of women emerges form the choir and reaches for that which is the most intimate and carefully hidden in every individual, but which can also become threatening and lead to murder in a devotional ecstasy – both now and 2.5 thousand years ago. The songs activate dark emotions – energies which, in the presence of the half-god, half-man Dionysus, provoke a degraded ritual– an ambiguous celebration crowned with on a lynch on “the other one” who dares to transgress the social taboos.
“The Bacchae” is a confrontation of these two themes, relating these tensions to modern interpersonal relations. Modern society constitutes a group which is quick to define collective responsibility. With the fading presence of any understanding of a god, which is being replaced by false idols, it is easy to claim omniscience and omnipotence. It is easy to manipulate the emotions of others. Faced with the decay of values, religions and authorities, destruction and aggression towards others become the means of self-definition. In our culture, the necessity of cleansing through a sacrifice has been reduced to acts of scapegoating. Every single one of us feels a simultaneous need for order and chaos, for madness and harmony. Why are we the only species which engages in the slaughter of its own kind while longing deeply for love and the presence of a god?
