At the centre of this year’s Playing with Kantor Festival is a relatively young country (having achieved independence in 1830), one with difficult history and complex identity, one that fosters its separateness seeing it as a wealth in its own right – Belgium.
The theme of the festival, “doubleness,” is present at more than one level.
How much of Kantor is in Belgium and how much of Belgium is in Kantor? We will be answering these questions from 4 to 15 November 2024.
Find out more and read curatorial statement.
The Belgian version of the Playing with Kantor Festival follows a bidirectional path: we wish to highlight the influence that Belgian theatre exerted on Kantor’s work, and to present how his theatrical achievement affected Belgian artists.
In Belgium, Cricot 2’s productions – especially The Dead Class (1977 in Ghent) and Wielopole, Wielopole (1984 in Louvain-la-Neuve) came as an aesthetic shock. They left an imprint on several generations of Belgian artists, starting from the so-called Flemish wave which set trends in the theatre from the last decades of the 20th century, including Jan Lauwers, Jan Fabre, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Luk Perceval. It is worth mentioning that the first two, like Kantor, were educated in fine arts and active in the art world not only as theatre creators but also as visual artists.
Some of the events in our programme will reintroduce the Polish public to the specific and unique nature of Belgian theatre, others will elucidate the connections between Tadeusz Kantor’s theatre and Belgian culture.
Apart from live and screened performances, the Playing with Kantor programme offers meetings with Belgian and Polish theatre artists and Polish researchers of Belgian culture, lectures on eminent Belgian playwrights, and a possibility for immersing oneself in virtual reality inspired by Kantor’s ideas for the stage, while being an implementation of one of Maeterlinck’s key concepts.
PROGRAMME
4 November (Monday)
Opening of the festival and meeting with the creators of VR Cricoterie, Tale of Tales
Cricoteka, theatre hall, 6:00 p.m., event held in Polish and English, translated into Polish, free admission
4–10 November (Monday–Sunday)
VR Cricoterie – virtual reality simulation by Tale of Tales
Michaël Samyn and Auriea Harvey (a Ghent-based art duo called Tale of Tales) have created Cricoterie, a virtual space that poses the question about the status of objects and figures in the virtual world. The work takes the player into the universe of Tadeusz Kantor’s art and allows them to freely manipulate objects and characters from Cricot 2 productions. The project was carried out during the artists’ residency at the Tadeusz Kantor and Maria Stangret’s House in Hucisko in collaboration with the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Tadeusz Kantor Foundation and VAF.
Cricoteka, educational room, tickets PLN 10
Opening: 4 November, 6:00 p.m.
Availability: 5–10 November, 11:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m.
5 November (Tuesday)
An Evening with Maeterlinck
A talk and screenings of two performances based on Maurice Maeterlinck’s plays.
In her talk, Karolina Czerska will discuss the main ideas put forward by the Belgian Nobelist that revolutionised the world theatre in the 20th and 21st centuries (tragedy in everyday life, the theatre of androids, static drama).
Wnętrze [Interior] – screening of a performance directed by Wojtek Rodak
Based on Maeterlinck’s play, the production was put on in 2020 within the framework of the cycle Młodzi w Starym [The Young at the Old] at the National Old Theatre in Kraków. In the time of the pandemic, the play was rehearsed online and only live-streamed thrice. It was the first Maeterlink’s play performed in a Polish theatre in many years. Importantly, the hundred-year-old translation was revisited by a young director, still a student at the time, now an award-winning director and playwright.
Theater Immobiel/Maison Maeterlinck – screening of a performance directed by Thom Luz
The Swiss director’s first production in Belgium, in Maeterlinck’s home town Ghent, was premiered in 2023 at the NTGent Theatre. Based on Maeterlinck’s theoretical essays and plays, its visual and sound space was designed by the director in response to Maeterlinck’s demand for a reduced presence of living actors on stage.
The creators of both performances address the concept of closed, static space that gives the illusion of safety.
Cricoteka, theatre hall, 6:00 p.m., talk held in Polish, Wnętrze performed in Polish, Theater Immobiel/Maison Maeterlinck performed in Dutch and French, English subtitles, free admission
6 November (Wednesday)
Kantor, Ghelderode, lalki i marionety [Kantor, Ghelderode, Puppets and Marionettes] – discussion
Joanna Braun, Karol Suszczyński, Włodzimierz Szturc
Conducted by Karolina Czerska
Discussion will centre on the tradition of puppet theatre in Belgium and Poland and two productions of Michel de Ghelderode’s plays at the Teatre Groteska. In 1970, La Farce de la Mort qui faillit trésser (The Farce of Death Who Almost Died) was directed by Stanisław Rychlicki, a Cricot 2 actor who also took a role in it, and in 1991 the Belgian director Jules van Houtte put on Le Soleil se couche (The Sun is Setting). Participating in the discussion will be people involved in those productions (staging, stage design and translation).
Teatr Groteska, Kopułowa hall, 6:00 p.m., discussion held in Polish, translated into polish sign language, free admission
9 November (Saturday) and 10 November (Sunday)
Far from Linden, directed by Giuseppe Lonobile, based on Veronika Mabardi’s play
Premiered in 2015 and performed since on a regular basis, it was presented at the Off Festival in Avignon to great critical acclaim. The low-key production is based on the biographies of the playwright’s grandmothers and represents (based on conversations recorded by the artists) an impossible dialogue between them – impossible, amongst others, for linguistic reasons; one of them only spoke Flemish, while the other was a French-speaking Belgian woman with no knowledge of Flemish. The linguistic difference is only one element of the highly complicated identity issues faced by Belgians today.
Cricoteka, theatre hall, 6:00 p.m., performed in French, Polish subtitles, tickets PLN 30/50
9 November (Saturday)
Meeting with the creators of Far from Linden
Valérie Bauchau, Véronique Dumont, Giuseppe Lonobile, Veronika Mabardi
Conducted by Justyna Michalik-Tomala
Discussion about matters that affected the making of the performance and a broader context of Belgian theatre in the last dozen or so years. It takes the playwright’s biography intertwined with civil unrest in Leuven in the early 1970s as its point of departure. In Far from Linden, the grandson summons his grandmothers, two strong female figures from very different backgrounds, to appear on stage. A private story becomes inscribed into universal history. The participants will also analyse similar solutions adopted by Kantor in
Wielopole, Wielopole, as well as the interrelations between a universal reading of both performances and the autobiographical elements they contain.
Cricoteka, theatre hall, 8:00 p.m., conversation held in French, translated into Polish, free admission
14 November (Thursday)
Meeting with Luk Perceval
Conducted by Dorota Semenowicz
Luk Perceval was one of the most important contemporary Belgian theatre directors. Describing his experience of Cricot 2 performances, he said: „To był teatr, który na całe dnie, jak u kogoś szalonego, opanował mój umysł, nie tylko z powodu obrazów, ale też uczuć, jakie we mnie wywołał. Wiedziałem, że jest to taki rodzaj teatru, takie doświadczenie, jakie sam chciałbym realizować.” The talk will explore Perceval’s main theatrical inspirations and the peculiarities of Flemish theatre.
Cricoteka, theatre hall, 7:30 p.m., conversation held in English, translated into Polish, free admission
15 November (Friday)
An evening with Jan Lauwers and Needcompany
A lecture by Anna Róża Burzyńska, author of the idea and curator of the first editions of Playing with Kantor, and a screening of the play The Blind Poet by Needcompany, based on the text, with set design and directed by Jan Lauwers (2015).
Jan Lauwers, a leading figure in the transformation of Flemish theater in the 1980s, like Tadeusz Kantor came from the visual arts. The lecture will introduce contexts relevant to Lauwers’ work and to the activities of the Needcompany.
Cricoteka, theatre hall, 7:00 p.m., talk in Polish, screening with Polish subtitles, free admission
4–17 November
Exhibition of photographs from Cricot 2 performances by Carlos Dekeyrel
A presentation of black-and-white photographs by the Belgian graphic artist, who documented the legendary performances of Cricot 2 Theater: The Dead Class (Ghent, 1977) and Wielopole, Wielopole (Paris, 1980).
Multimedia presentation devoted to Maurice Maeterlinck’s life and work, prepared by the team of the Archives & Musée de la Littérature in Brussels, including archive materials from the AML Collection.
Cricoteka, foyer, free admission, Tuesday–Sunday, 11:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Opening: 4 November, 6:00 p.m.
Collateral events:
7 November (Thursday)
Poésie à la voix et à la basse
An evening with the poetry of Veronica Mabardi accompanied by the music of Karolina Czerska and the premiere of the Polish edition of Veronika Mabardi’s play Far from Linden translated by Karolina Czerska
Księgarnia Lokator, 7:00 p.m., poems read in French, free admission
12 November (Tuesday)
Lecture by Karolina Czerska: Michel de Ghelderode. Teatr okrucieństwa [Michel de Ghelderode. The Theatre of Cruelty]
Institute of Romance Studies UJ, 1:30 p.m., lecture held in Polish
13 November (Wednesday)
Lecture by Agnieszka Kukuryk: René Kalisky. Przewrotne oblicza totalitaryzmów XX wieku w teatrze [René Kalisky. A Subversive Image of 20th-c Totalitarianisms in Theatre]
University of the National Education Commission, 5:00 p.m., lecture held in Polish
15 November (Friday)
Lecture by Przemysław Szczur: Antoine Pickels. Dramaty kłirowe [Antoine Pickels. Queer Dramas]
University of the National Education Commission, 5:00 p.m., lecture held in Polish
Educational Programme
We will work in space on different levels. We will look at our reflections and double ourselves with plastic means of expression. Two independent groups will complement each other to create together an art installation, which will be on display in the lobby of Cricoteka.
November 9 (Saturday)
10:30 a.m. –11:30 a.m.
Reflections in space
Workshop for children aged 2–3 years / Kaleidoscope of Art
12 a.m. –1 p.m.
Double bodies
Workshop for children aged 4–8 years / Art Machine
Run by: Luna Sawka
Cricoteka, hall, workshops in Polish, tickets PLN 30 per child, admission for parents is free.
Curator: Karolina Czerska
Coordinator: Wiktor Bury
Visual identity: Kuba Sowiński
Project team: Mariusz Gąsior, Małgorzata Kmita-Fugiel, Anna Lejtkowska, Magdalena Link-Lenczowska, Zofia Mikołajska, Aldona Mikulska, Andrea Nikolov, Anna Rejowska, Luna Sawka, Tomasz Stefaniak, Aleksandra Treder, Michał Warmusz
Partners:
Archives & Musée de la Littérature in Brussels
Teatr Groteska
Narodowy Stary Teatr
Wydawnictwo LOKATOR
Instytut Filologii Romańskiej Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Instytut Neofilologii Uniwersytetu Komisji Edukacji Narodowej
Media patrons:
Radio Kraków
Radio Kraków Kultura
TVP Kultura
Gazeta Wyborcza
Czasopismo ROMAN
Miesięcznik „Teatr”
e-teatr.pl
Ośrodek Badań nad Awangardą UJ
