THREESOME
2024 | BELLUARD BOLLWERK & NOWY TEATR
In Threesome, I share the dance space with spectral figures from the past as I grapple with their legacy. In this exercise in phantasmagoric choreography, I go cruising through the biographies of the legendary dancers Stanisław Szymański, Wojciech Wiesiołłowski, and Gerard Wilk. Brought up in post-war, communist Poland, two of them eventually emigrated, while one chose to stay in his native country.
How have their bodies been remembered? How did these bodies come to recognize their sensibility and express it on stage? How can these marginalized lives be reclaimed and embodied today? How do we construct an untamed, monstrous, illogical bodily archive of queer history without losing any of their uniqueness?
Threesome seeks to dispel the myths and rediscover their individual experience in a world that we were not part of. It is a hazy posthumous ballet, a repressed legacy, a reenactment, an act of somatic plunder and transformation.
Threesome: Do not let these biographies be appropriated, much less consumed by the history of ballet and by politics. Do not let national sentiment lay claim to the oberek. Surrender to the other, so as to disappear and to exist more fully.
"Most of them are human in form, but they often have a grotesque oddity that they try to keep hidden. Some use their lovely faces to keep you from noticing that, when seen from the back, their heads are hollow. Others use their long hair to hide the fact that they have animals' feet. Some keep their hands in fast, perpetual motion to prevent you from seeing that their fingers are joined together. They are able to provoke both admiration and horror. They are thought to lament over and revel in their differences."
— Peter Stoneley, A Queer History of the Ballet
REVIEWS︎
In the first part, the dancer’s body evokes Greek sculptures, but the choreography focuses on the male buttocks and what lies between them. In the second, rebellion against norms is symbolized, among other things, by an original take on the oberek dance. As a whole, "Threesome" is a gripping performance executed with perfection—not only in terms of choreography and dance, but also in its outstanding dramaturgy (developed with the support of Joanna Ostrowska and Klaudia Hartung-Wójciak), music (Lubomir Grzelak, Wojtek Blecharz), video incorporating archival footage of the protagonists (Rafał Dominik), and lighting (Jacqueline Sobiszewski). It is a powerful yet humorous story about breaking free from shame and fighting for one’s place in a country, in art, and in history.
ANETA KYZIOŁ for Polityka
published on 17.09.2024
︎︎︎ CONCEPT, CHOREOGRAPHY: Wojciech Grudziński
︎︎︎ ARTISTIC COLLABORATION: Igor Cardellini
︎︎︎ DRAMATURGICAL SUPPORT: Joanna Ostrowska, Klaudia Hartung-Wójciak
︎︎︎ TEXT: Klaudia Hartung-Wójciak
︎︎︎ ARTISTIC ADVISOR: Miguel Angel Melgares
︎︎︎ MUSIC: Lubomir Grzelak, Wojtek Blecharz
︎︎︎ LIGHT DESIGN: Jacqueline Sobiszewski
︎︎︎ COSTUME DESIGN: Marta Szypulska
︎︎︎ TECHNICAL DIRECTION: Thibault Villard
︎︎︎ VIDEO: Rafał Dominik
︎︎︎ PRODUCTION: Wojciech Grudziński / 910113 foundation
︎︎︎ RESIDENCIES: Cité Internationale des Arts, Frascati, Visegrad Artist Residency Program for Performing Arts
︎︎︎ Co-financed by the Capital City of Warsaw
︎︎︎ With the support of Centre national de la danse – Pantin, Frascati
︎︎︎ Co-production Belluard Bollwerk, Nowy Teatr
︎︎︎ ARTISTIC COLLABORATION: Igor Cardellini
︎︎︎ DRAMATURGICAL SUPPORT: Joanna Ostrowska, Klaudia Hartung-Wójciak
︎︎︎ TEXT: Klaudia Hartung-Wójciak
︎︎︎ ARTISTIC ADVISOR: Miguel Angel Melgares
︎︎︎ MUSIC: Lubomir Grzelak, Wojtek Blecharz
︎︎︎ LIGHT DESIGN: Jacqueline Sobiszewski
︎︎︎ COSTUME DESIGN: Marta Szypulska
︎︎︎ TECHNICAL DIRECTION: Thibault Villard
︎︎︎ VIDEO: Rafał Dominik
︎︎︎ PRODUCTION: Wojciech Grudziński / 910113 foundation
︎︎︎ RESIDENCIES: Cité Internationale des Arts, Frascati, Visegrad Artist Residency Program for Performing Arts
︎︎︎ Co-financed by the Capital City of Warsaw
︎︎︎ With the support of Centre national de la danse – Pantin, Frascati
︎︎︎ Co-production Belluard Bollwerk, Nowy Teatr