The ninth Polish Dance Platform festival, organized by the Grotowski Institute in Wrocław and the National Institute of Music and Dance in Warsaw, will present work chosen by an international jury from Lithuania, France, Italy, Bulgaria and Japan.
The Polish Dance Platform changes host cities between editions and has previously been staged in Warsaw, Poznań, Lublin, Bytom, Gdańsk and Łódź.
Its arrival in Wrocław draws on a city with a long history of experimental performance.
Jerzy Grotowski and his Laboratory Theatre reshaped 20th-century thinking about actors and their relationship with audiences, while Henryk Tomaszewski developed a distinctive school of mime in the city.
Wrocław was also an important center for happenings, open theater and performance outside conventional stages.
"The city has its own long, less obvious and still living history connected with the performing arts," program curator Marek Gluziński said.
The main selection includes Glory Game, Rapeflower and I Love Ballet, all produced by Warsaw’s Komuna Warszawa, as well as To Bitch or Not to Bitch, The Spell, Wojciech Grudziński’s Threesome/Trzy, Rooms by the Sea: Exercises in Listening, Agnieszka Brzezińska’s Who Cares and Marta Wołowiec's WoW.
Japanese jury member Takao Norikoshi said he was struck by the range of references used by Polish choreographers.
"They are inspired by the complex history of Poland and Europe, but also by contemporary technology, philosophy and various traditions and cultural currents from around the world," he said.
The accompanying program will open with Ekspozycje, choreographed by Maria Stokłosa and created especially for the Platform with dancers selected through an open call.
Stokłosa described it as a "warm-up for looking at movement."
Also on the program is My Home, No Home, the latest work by Nazareth Panadero and Michael Strecker, dancers associated with Tanztheater Wuppertal, the German company shaped for decades by choreographer Pina Bausch.
Wrocław performers linked to the Grotowski Institute will present The Maids: Materials, a work dealing with identity and the experience of displacement.
The four-day event forms the culmination of a wider season of dance in Wrocław that began in April with workshops, performances, film screenings and public dance events.
(rt/gs)
Source: PAP, wroclaw.tvp.pl, danceplatform.pl