The title of the performance is a reference to the American reality show Dance Moms, which focuses on child dancers and behaviour of their mothers as they observe their competing kiddies. The relationship between mother and child is probably the most intimate form of connection – universal and permanent. That is why we try to recreate it in othe relations: patchwork families, queer homes or trib groups. Each refers to the figure of female guardia of the hearth, whom no one can leave.
In the mother-child relationship, a phenomenon of physical kinship dominates; it spills out of the private sphere and becomes visibly political. It is not only womanhood observed through the prism of motherhood that is political, but also the figure of woman in post-reproductive age, which is being permanently erased from patriarchal culture. Mother’s desire and body become invisible, stepping aside to make room for child’s life.
In DANCE MOM by Wojciech Grudziński, the scrupulous and sensitive economist with forty years of service, daughter of an army officer and an accountant, will dance with three artists, her own son being among them. Family stories and autobiographical motives recalled during the performance will be th narrative about mother and son, goddess and idol, the part separating from the whole, beginning an ending, the conscious and the unconscious, the young and the old. We shall recall the elements that life consists of in the performance, reach to the sources of fertility to look at the time slipping away, we shall draw the first story from the relation between mother and son – comic, trivial and amazing, wonderful and useful, smart and stupid.
There are no inappropriate or maladjusted bodie in our “family of misfits”. There are no boundaries of performative freedom, there is no shame, embarrassment, “too much”; there is only the clearance of canals – entirely as in birthing. A mistake in dancing becomes an element of choreography and the canon of beauty is completely unchained from social rigours and cultural conventions. DANCE MOM is a celebration of kinship and a dance of derivativ bodies; a dance of motherhood without childre and children without mothers; of men, who want t be mothers, and mothers who want to be children. The immersion of the world in fairytale, song, canzona and ballad. The opera in a Warsaw four-room apartment. It is also a praise of heritage of women choreographers, whom we call mothers of dance and whom we cannot forget.
Do you remember the myth about filthy Baubo, who amused Demeter, desperate after the death of her daughter? I was born to make you happy (Britney Spears).
︎︎︎ CONCEPT, CHOREOGRAPHY: Wojciech Grudziński
︎︎︎ CREATION, DANCE: Ewa Dziarnowska, Ewa Grudzińska, Wojciech Grudziński, Michał Sławecki
︎︎︎ CONTRA: TENOR Michał Sławecki
︎︎︎ DRAMATURGY: Joanna Ostrowska, Paweł Soszyński
︎︎︎ COSTUMES: Marta Szypulska
︎︎︎ SPACE: Wojciech Grudziński, Marta Szypulska
︎︎︎ MUSIC: Wojtek Blecharz
︎︎︎ LIGHT DESIGN: Aleksandr Prowaliński
︎︎︎ PAINTING: Jan Możdżyński
︎︎︎ PHOTOS: Bartosz Zalewski
︎︎︎ GRAPHICS: Maciej Bychowski
︎︎︎ PRODUCTION MANAGER: Olga Drygas
︎︎︎ FLAMENCO CONSULTATION: Małgorzata Matuszewska
︎︎︎ PREMIERE: 24.04.2021
︎︎︎ Widening the Field - choreographic program by Nowy Teatr and Art Stations Foundation, curator: Joanna Leśnierowska
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In the mother-child relationship, a phenomenon of physical kinship dominates; it spills out of the private sphere and becomes visibly political. It is not only womanhood observed through the prism of motherhood that is political, but also the figure of woman in post-reproductive age, which is being permanently erased from patriarchal culture. Mother’s desire and body become invisible, stepping aside to make room for child’s life.
In DANCE MOM by Wojciech Grudziński, the scrupulous and sensitive economist with forty years of service, daughter of an army officer and an accountant, will dance with three artists, her own son being among them. Family stories and autobiographical motives recalled during the performance will be th narrative about mother and son, goddess and idol, the part separating from the whole, beginning an ending, the conscious and the unconscious, the young and the old. We shall recall the elements that life consists of in the performance, reach to the sources of fertility to look at the time slipping away, we shall draw the first story from the relation between mother and son – comic, trivial and amazing, wonderful and useful, smart and stupid.
There are no inappropriate or maladjusted bodie in our “family of misfits”. There are no boundaries of performative freedom, there is no shame, embarrassment, “too much”; there is only the clearance of canals – entirely as in birthing. A mistake in dancing becomes an element of choreography and the canon of beauty is completely unchained from social rigours and cultural conventions. DANCE MOM is a celebration of kinship and a dance of derivativ bodies; a dance of motherhood without childre and children without mothers; of men, who want t be mothers, and mothers who want to be children. The immersion of the world in fairytale, song, canzona and ballad. The opera in a Warsaw four-room apartment. It is also a praise of heritage of women choreographers, whom we call mothers of dance and whom we cannot forget.
Do you remember the myth about filthy Baubo, who amused Demeter, desperate after the death of her daughter? I was born to make you happy (Britney Spears).
︎︎︎ CONCEPT, CHOREOGRAPHY: Wojciech Grudziński
︎︎︎ CREATION, DANCE: Ewa Dziarnowska, Ewa Grudzińska, Wojciech Grudziński, Michał Sławecki
︎︎︎ CONTRA: TENOR Michał Sławecki
︎︎︎ DRAMATURGY: Joanna Ostrowska, Paweł Soszyński
︎︎︎ COSTUMES: Marta Szypulska
︎︎︎ SPACE: Wojciech Grudziński, Marta Szypulska
︎︎︎ MUSIC: Wojtek Blecharz
︎︎︎ LIGHT DESIGN: Aleksandr Prowaliński
︎︎︎ PAINTING: Jan Możdżyński
︎︎︎ PHOTOS: Bartosz Zalewski
︎︎︎ GRAPHICS: Maciej Bychowski
︎︎︎ PRODUCTION MANAGER: Olga Drygas
︎︎︎ FLAMENCO CONSULTATION: Małgorzata Matuszewska
︎︎︎ PREMIERE: 24.04.2021
︎︎︎ Widening the Field - choreographic program by Nowy Teatr and Art Stations Foundation, curator: Joanna Leśnierowska
REVIEWS ︎
The driving force of Wojciec Grudziński's Dance Mom performance is rhythm. It is the rhythm that organises the ritual stage order in which the intimat relationship between the choreographer and his mother isinscribed.
MAGDALENA FIGZAŁ-JANIKOWSKA for teatralny.pl
published on 14.07.2021
Grudziński's performance confronts the audience with, afterall, one of the greatest concealments: the corporeality andsexuality of mothers, the body of a woman who gave birth, inrelation to her son, the body that was born. The presence onstage really comes down to these two bodies, entangled and connected with each other as in the picture by Jan Możdżyński, entering into a crazy symbiosis, so important in the realisation of the choreography.
ANNA PAJĘCKA for DIALOG PISMO
published on 13.08.2021
Dance Mom is a poetic-queer poem presented on stage, its surreal aesthetics is in a way counterpointed, or rather"made real" by the authentic, sometimes awkward movementof Ewa Grudzińska. However, what is extremely important, Wojciech Grudziński did not create a choreography for his mother in which she would have to pretend to be a virtuoso dancer, overcome the limitations of an aging body or perform extraordinary. He also did not make her a funny “Other”, who, radically disagreeing with the world of a dance show, would become a weird senior, charmingly teasing the rhythm of old hits. In this performance, the dance is - literally and figuratively - a partnership. You can see that Ewa Grudzińska feels safe in it.
Alicja Müller for TEATR-PISMO
published on 01.06.2021
MAGDALENA FIGZAŁ-JANIKOWSKA for teatralny.pl
published on 14.07.2021
Grudziński's performance confronts the audience with, afterall, one of the greatest concealments: the corporeality andsexuality of mothers, the body of a woman who gave birth, inrelation to her son, the body that was born. The presence onstage really comes down to these two bodies, entangled and connected with each other as in the picture by Jan Możdżyński, entering into a crazy symbiosis, so important in the realisation of the choreography.
ANNA PAJĘCKA for DIALOG PISMO
published on 13.08.2021
Dance Mom is a poetic-queer poem presented on stage, its surreal aesthetics is in a way counterpointed, or rather"made real" by the authentic, sometimes awkward movementof Ewa Grudzińska. However, what is extremely important, Wojciech Grudziński did not create a choreography for his mother in which she would have to pretend to be a virtuoso dancer, overcome the limitations of an aging body or perform extraordinary. He also did not make her a funny “Other”, who, radically disagreeing with the world of a dance show, would become a weird senior, charmingly teasing the rhythm of old hits. In this performance, the dance is - literally and figuratively - a partnership. You can see that Ewa Grudzińska feels safe in it.
Alicja Müller for TEATR-PISMO
published on 01.06.2021
