Et In Arcadia Ego II: …we thought we heard fireworks

11.02.2016 at 6.30 p.m. and 12.02.2016 at 5.00 p.m.
Barn Theater – Rose Bruford College, London

38 BURIED ROSES ETA
Direction: Teresa & Andrzej Welminski

The performance is a continuation and further development of the project commenced few months earlier at Cricoteka in Cracow.

The preliminary, original assumption of the both realizations was the reference to Tadeusz Kantor’s Panoramic Sea Happening, and more precisely to the iconic photo of the Sea Concerto. We had been considering to create the situation on the principle of an animated picture modelled just after this photo by Eustachy Kossakowski. Of course, the point was not to recreate the happening itself.

In London  once again the inflatable beach fills up with people and from the dunes there keep arising the characteristic silhouettes of the beachgoers, swimmers, candy floss seller, a lifeguard…

The references to the various artistic phenomena and drawing from the sources of the past, like from a warehouse of the motives is of capital importance in actor’s work;  etchings depicting beaches by James Ensor, pictures by Rene Magritte , archival photographs and monochrome burlesque motion pictures provided us with the new ideas. But still on our mind there was the problem of discrepancy between art and the present-day reality. The Arcadian, carefree and idyllic atmosphere is getting overshadowed by the pictures of ruins, terror and the recurring refugee waves.

A character in black chalk writes on the walls the well known inscription from Nicolas Poussin:  ET IN ARCADIA EGO