Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Grotowski's Ghosts

2005; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 15; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1048680042000334331

1477-2264

Paul Allain,

Eastern European Communism and Reforms

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes Another example is Lisa Wolford, ‘Seminal Teachings: The Grotowski Influence: A Reassessment’, Canadian Theatre Review, 88 (Fall 1996), 38–43. See Robert Findlay in the foreword to Lisa Wolford's Grotowski's Objective Drama Research (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1996), p. xv. This work is described in detail in Richard Schechner, Lisa Wolford (eds), The Grotowski Sourcebook, rev. paperback edn (New York: Routledge, 2001) and Thomas Richards, The Edge-Point of Performance, interviewer Lisa Wolford (Pontedera: Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski, 1997) This cancellation by Mirecka, one of the key actors of Teatr Laboratorium, who was also supposed to lead a workshop prior to the conference, was surrounded by mystery. It was explained by the fact that she had had an ‘epiphany’ in India suggesting she go in another direction from that previously planned. Ludwik Flaszen and Carla Pollestrelli, with Renata Molinari (eds), Il Teatr Laboratorium di Jerzy Grotowski 1959–1969, Testi e materiali di Jerzy Grotowski e Ludwik Flaszen con uno scritto di Eugenio Barba (Pontedera: Fondazione Pontedera Teatro, 2001). This is being considered by Routledge for future publication in English. For a brief report, see Magdalena Hasiuk, ‘Jerzy Grotowski's Bright Alley’, Slavic and East European Performance, 23:1 (Winter 2003), 24–35. As Hasiuk indicates, there were meant to be annual conferences over three years under the general title ‘Jerzy Grotowski: the Past and Present of the Research’. The one she writes about was called ‘Jerzy Grotowski: The Past and the Future of the Research: The Paratheatrical Activities 1969–78. The Theatre of Sources 1976–82.’ The third conference on Objective Drama and art as vehicle has not yet taken place. It has perhaps been subsumed by the Workcenter's European project that I discuss later. Slowiak was not invited formally to speak as he was involved primarily in Objective Drama rather than this earlier phase of activities. Cuesta contributed a paper as he was involved in the Theatre of Sources as well as Objective Drama. For information on their work together see http://nwplab.org/. I am grateful to Grzegorz Ziółkowski for this and other information and advice that has added greatly to this article. Project Gildia was initiated by Stowarzyszenie Tratwa led by Ryszard Michalski. It involved, in part, the creation of a performance Żywy proch (Live Ash), which was shown in the November 2003 Międzynarodowy Festiwal Teatralny Maski as well as in Olsztyn. In her doctoral thesis, ‘The Occupation of the Saint: Grotowski's Art as Vehicle’, completed at Northwestern University, USA, in December 1996, Lisa Wolford declared: ‘What form this practice [art as vehicle] will take when Richards is forced to continue alone – after the regrettable but unfortunately foreseeable event of Grotowski's death – it is difficult to imagine’, p. 155. The huge developments that this article outlines are especially notable in light of this hesitant statement from someone very close to the work. It shows the difficulty of predicting the flow of such evolving processes. Richard Schechner and Lisa Wolford (eds), The Grotowski Sourcebook, rev. paperback edn (New York: Routledge, 2001), p. xxvi See ch. 38 in ibid. See http://www.grotcenter.art.pl for more information about the centre's activities. In January 2004 the web-site was relaunched in Polish and English and contains advance information about most of the activities that the centre organises. I began to document the continuation of Grotowski's work in a short article ‘After Grotowski – the Next Generation’, New Theatre Quarterly 69, 18:1 (February 2002), 59–65, which had a section on Studium Teatralne. For further research towards this current piece and for financial assistance to run a symposium with the Workcenter, including screenings of the films of Action and Art as Vehicle which took place at the University of Kent in January 2005, I am grateful to the Arts and Humanities Research Board, Great Britain. Gardzienice's practice is dealt with elsewhere in this issue – see Alison Hodge's article. See ch. 4, ‘The Formation of Gardzienice – from Grotowski and Paratheatre’ in my Gardzienice: Polish Theatre in Transition (Amsterdam: Harwood, 1997), pp. 45–57, which accounts for the connection between Gardzienice's director Włodzimierz Staniewski and Grotowski. See for example Eugenio Barba, Land of Ashes and Diamonds: My Apprenticeship in Poland (Aberystwyth: Black Mountain Press, 1999). In Istanbul in 2003 in Aya Irini church there were 35 witnesses, though one of these commented to me that they still felt intimate to the action and did not especially notice the size of the group, due to the large space. See the Italian text ‘Incontro all’Università ‘La Sapienza’ di Mario Biagini’, in Anna Rita Ciamarra (ed.), I Giganti della Montagna – Rivista di Cultura Teatrale, 1.0 (February 2001), 21–34 (p. 21). Some extracts have been translated but are unpublished in English. See ‘Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards and Action’, The Drama Review, 43:2 (T162), (Summer 1999), 13–14. Ibid., p. 12. See Anna Rita Ciamarra, ‘Incontro all'Università ‘La Sapienza’, op. cit., p. 21. Biagini's unpublished translation. Biagini stated in public in June 2003 that he had in fact only seen one video of Grotowski's performances – Akropolis. Made by A.C.C.A.A.N. – L'Atelier Cinéma de Normandie, directed by André Guéret. The film is a record of the performance alone without commentary and with a minimal explanatory text. It is shown at public screenings by the Workcenter with an earlier 1989 film of the ‘Downstairs Action’, Art as Vehicle, by Mercedes Gregory. Neither is available for general release and will only be shown with Richards providing additional commentary, though on the earlier film Grotowski himself speaks about the film document. In fact, Stanislavsky referred to Meyerhold as his only heir, a connection that is too often underplayed. For elaboration on this idea, see Eugenio Barba, ‘Grandfathers, Orphans and the Family Saga of European theatre’, New Theatre Quarterly, 19:2 (May 2003), 108–117. In her thesis (see footnote 8), Wolford makes some illuminating observations about Grotowski's own understanding of the need to break out of isolation at regular intervals. In the last four years of his life, following the 1995 showings of Action, there was an increasing impulse to open the work up to interested parties. Gey Pin had previously been at the Workcenter for a year in 1994 as well as with Slowiak and Grotowski in Irvine. She is mentioned in the latter context in Wolford, Grotowski's Objective Drama Research. A new theatre piece has subsequently evolved out of this, premiered in the public theatre at Pontedera (not the space in Vallicelle) from 6–15 February 2004. The piece, called Dies Irae, is directed by Biagini and Richards. For further information see http://www.tracingroadsacross.net/. This project is funded by the European Union Commission. The website includes an online bibliography of materials on Grotowski for which the Workcenter invites contributions. See for example questions asked by Eugenio Barba in The Paper Canoe (London: Routledge, 1995), pp. 99–100. In her thesis Wolford notes how Grotowski did not think it healthy for people to stay too long at the Workcenter. See ‘The Occupation of the Saint: Grotowski's Art as Vehicle’, (December 1996), pp. 155–156. The parameters of the current project are very different to the phase of work Grotowski is referring to there and has much more engagement with the public, hence quite another understanding of useful structures of participation. Maria Hepel and Zbigniew Osiński (eds), The Centre of Studies on Jerzy Grotowski's Work and of the Cultural and Theatrical Research 1990–1999 (Wrocław: The Grotowski Centre, 2000), p. 14. See Alison Hodge's article in this issue. Zar is the name of a Georgian lamentation funeral ceremony, pointing to the fieldwork research the company has undertaken to rural cultures, for example in Georgia, Bulgaria, Iran and Greece. This performance work has the support of the centre though does not receive funding through or from it. The premiere of this piece was in October 2003. As an example, see the review article ‘Teatr jest pułapka¸’ (‘Theatre is a Trap’) by Paweł Goźliński in Didaskalia, 45 (October 2001), 70–72. Some possessiveness can be detected in the way the reviewer adopts an aloof and puzzled tone, and almost scolds Richards and Biagini, stating that no-one has a monopoly over Grotowski. He also compares the piece to Grotowski's performance work, saying that it does not have as much ‘power’. With a population of Poles of approximately 2 million, Chicago is know as Poland's second city. This emphasis is something that Richard Schechner in particular has questioned in The Future of Ritual (New York: Routledge, 1993), pp. 253–256. There was a visit to Wrocław by Richards and Biagini in November 2003 for a screening of the films on art as vehicle, and there will be further collaboration with Polish theatre groups in summer 2004. See ‘Interview with Piotr Borowski: Artistic Director of Studium Teatralne, Warsaw’, Slavic and East European Performance, (Fall 1999), 15–23. See ‘Studium’ and ‘Oś’ (‘Axis’), an interview with Borowski’ by Tadeusz Kornaś in Didaskalia, 48 (April 2002), 72–79, (p. 77). In February 2004 Fret took over the directorship of the Centre for three years in the first instance. Grzegorz Ziółkowski took over as Programme Director from February 2004, replacing Zbigniew Osiński.