To express the inexpressible

"Sphere Ruchu" review in Mrowisko in Zielona Góra

The seventh edition of Sphere of Movement - the Zielona Góra festival of theater created on the initiative of the Dance Theater Studio - has come to an end. Lovers of dance theater, physical theater and modern dance will have to wait for the next dose of similar experiences all year round. Those who would like to pause this gloomy awareness for a moment, I invite you to a short summary of the performances of this year's festival guests!

One of the first performances that the audience of Sfera Ruchu had the opportunity to see was the painting show "Utero" performed by dancers from the Słupsk Teatr Ruchu Enza (Klaudia Michałowska, Urszula Grząielska-Zblewska, Ewa Antoniak, Dorota Różańska and Marta Deszcz), which danced to the choreography by Gabriela Keller -Janus. The series of beautiful moving pictures presented by them (which - due to the slightly cubist structure, constituting an extension of the costume of one of the dancers, as well as red scarves wrapping the heads of the protagonists - evoked associations with the paintings of Tamara Łempicka, in a very similar style, and in particular with her work "A Woman in an Orange Turban") talked about the everyday struggle that women fight with the conventions imposed on them, but also with their own body, psyche and suppressed sexuality. It showedas under the influence of experiences such as motherhood or illness, they discover in themselves a strength they did not know they had before.

During Sfera Ruchu, the well-known Terminus A Quo Theater from Nowa Sól, who is also friends with Pracownia, also traditionally presented its etude. This time the choice of actors fell on the award-winning author's project by Edward Gramont (the leader and founder of Terminus) entitled "Mouths / lazy". The performance (played by Kinga Nowak, Konrad Gramont, Edward Gramont, Eliasz Gramont and Cezary Molenda) is a grotesque story built on the canvas of a heavily deformed legend about Robin Hood, which the authors use to expose Polish morals, as well as to weave multiple discussions on the problem of faith. Filled with unexpected twists and sudden outbursts of madness (taking turns in individual characters), it resembles a vision of a mad philosopher,which in the maze of verbal acrobatics smuggles - to the surprise of the audience - a few fundamental truths that touch the essence of humanity. The dynamic spectacle, close in its form to performance and with a dose of absurd humor, captivated the festival audience. A comic scene in which the actor playing Robin Hood in a torn dress with a bow on his back simulates an aerial walk through the Sherwood trees and - like a le parkour - really climbs the walls of the stage, grabbing the protruding parts of the facade and bravado jumping from the speakers to the stands, made the audience laugh to tears!in which the actor playing Robin Hood in a torn dress with a bow on his back simulates an aerial walk through the Sherwood trees and - like a le parkour - really climbs the walls of the stage, grabbing the protruding parts of the façade and daringly jumping from the speakers to the stands, made the audience laugh to tears!in which the actor playing Robin Hood in a torn dress with a bow on his back simulates an aerial walk through the Sherwood trees and - like a le parkour - really climbs the walls of the stage, grabbing the protruding fragments of the façade and daringly jumping from the speakers to the stands, made the audience laugh to tears!

The second day of the festival was opened with a breathtaking performance by Gosia Mielech - a charismatic dancer and choreographer from the Poznań-based DanceLab band. The spectacle entitled "Anonymous", enriched with fascinating visualizations depicting a walk through the alleys of the urban jungle among multicolored graffiti, tells the story of street art - a passion balancing on the brink of art and vandalism. Effective figures assumed by the dancer and unusual forms that she "sculpted" in the air with her own body , allowed the viewers to penetrate the world of surreal, fleeting images and asked them about the limits of contemporary art.

This year, for the first time on the stage of Sfera Ruchu, there were also dancers from hip hop underground - Agnieszka Miś, Basia Mieszkalska, Ania Sepioł and Alicja Gotowska, who make up the Wolna Forma line-up. In a short performance, they expressed their struggles with the problems of everyday life and proved that dance derived from street culture can have many faces.

What happened on the stage of Mrowiska during the next performance cannot be expressed other than by analogy to the divine act of creation. Iwona Wojnicka (from Format Zero), a dancer emerging from a streak of soft light, dressed in a costume referring to a white sheet of paper, uncertain of its final shape, because it was waiting to be written, presented an oneiric performance entitled "Mizuko". A subtle dance of the actress reflecting the process of creation poem and drawing on the aesthetics of butoh, was - just like the traditional version of this Japanese dance - not so much an exercise as an attempt to set in motion, not so much dancing as "being dancing". Thanks to this, Wojnicka's poses combined into a coherent story about the process of creation - not only poetry as a separate means of expression,but also herself. The "act of birth" taking place in front of the audience caused a stir both in the audience and in the performer herself.

The last ones presented their performance were the dancers from Toruń's PańFu Project - Magdalena Bujalska, Joanna Miś-Fudali, Marta Pańka and Małgorzata Pośpiech. In a dynamic dance etude, based on Agnieszka Doberska's choreography, they tell about the extraordinary element of female nature and the divine element enclosed in it, which allows women to remain in contradictions, draw strength from falls and boldly set out to meet everyday life.

From year to year, the artistic level of the Sphere of Movement is clearly growing. More and more dance and theater groups are applying to participate in the festival, wanting to use movement to convey what is at least tangible, or even inexpressible on a purely verbal level. The audience gathers in front of Mrowisko at ever earlier times, developing various strategies for taking seats in the audience. And all this - as the organizers admit - with a nearly zero budget. Can you imagine any better evidence to prove that true art defends itself?

Agnieszka Moroz
The Theater Journal
25 March 2017