ET IN ARCADIA EGO

CRICOTEKA - Krakow

July 18, 2015       6 pm

Cricoting realized with the participants of workshops conducted by Teresa and Andrew Welminski, Andzik Kowalczyk and Tom Dobrowolski with the actors of Cricot 2

Workshop run in Cricoteka is an attempt to show problems arising of the diversity, richness and uniqueness of the theatre method worked out in Cricot Theatre, questioning the conventionality of the commonly established  narration about it and Kantor himself and pigeonholing Kantor's work within certain established terms and opinions.

The methods worked out by ourselves and deriving from genuine artistic thought created by Tadeusz Kantor's Cricot-2 Theatre  particularly relate to the teamwork character and its main prerequisite – the autonomous theatre in which all components of the work are of equal importance.

In the consequence the whole is created of which nothing has been known earlier.

In comparison to the theatrical work the workshops are of far more ephemeral character and are doomed to inevitable transience. Nevertheless the final public presentation, often enough one-time only performed, endows these forms with sense of existence  in the context of all artistic phenomena and responsibility for one's deeds, as well.

This year's classes  were conducted together with Andzik Kowalczyk and Tomek Dobrowolski, also the Cricot Theatre troupe members and they were extension and continuation of the workshop led by Andzik Kowalczyk. The objects which constituted  the main  subject of his work were still remaining on the scene, as well as the reconstruction of the Cricot Thetre's sound engineer stand and the six participants of the both processes  were further developing their stage characters and figures that had been earlier crystallized out.

During the classes not only we were performing various voice and movement exercises in connection with taking control of the stage space and gaining the harmonies and rhythms, but also we were constructing various objects, developing ways of their use, we were recording the sound effects, developing the choreographies and many other aspects.    

It was the full process of a performance development – from preliminary assumptions and indications through the integration of the whole collective to  the final public presentation. We all keep learning things in practice and during the unique experiences, leading at the same time to the specific artistic results.

In Cricoteka we were cooperating with an international team of unique diversity and wealth of personal attributes. Apart of Polish artists there were  also  Ukrainians, English, a Greek and one Polish-French young lady.  We are always intrigued by the participants of the classes, who bring to our common work their energy, talents, strength, ideas, willingness to sacrifice, determination and madness at times.

In the result the work was created, which we have named Et In Arcadia Ego. This 45-minute show may be placed somewhere between a performance and a spectaclem, and might be called e.g. a Cricoting (as its genealogy stems out of the Cricot experience, but it is not the one at the same time).

The preliminary, original assumption was the reference to the "Panoramic Sea Happening" and more precisely to  the iconic photo of the Sea Concerto. We were considering to create the situation on the principle of an animated picture for a model using just a photo by Eustachy Kossakowski. Of course, the point was not to recreate the happening itself.

Hence the pictures of a beach and the characteristic silhouettes on the sand were soon recalled (at the occasion we recalled Tadeusz Kantor's Cycle of drawings "People Eaten Up by Sand" of the year 1967, the very same as the happening).

The references to the various artistic phenomena and drawing from the sources of the past, like from a warehouse of the motives is of capital importance in actor's work;   etchings depicting beaches by James Ensor, pictures by Rene Magritte , archival photographs and monochrome burlesque motion pictures provided us with new ideas.

But still on our mind was the problem of discrepancy between art and reality.

Well, just few days before the commencement of your classes a real drama took place – shooting and a massacre on a Tunisian beach. The assassin, 23-year old Saifedin Rezgui opened machine-gun fire at the tourists resting on a hotel beach. 39 coincidental people were killed.

It was our joint decision to include these facts in our work. Without any aspects of the eye-catching journalism, but just giving it the universal dimension.  This way the banal situations, often shown in the comic burlesque light transform into a tragedy. 

A character in black writes with a stick in sand of paper an inscription from Nicolas Poussin's painting: ET IN ARCADIA EGO.

 

Following are the sequences of this spectacle:

Prologue

On the stage there are left the objects from the previous workshop: metal door, huge board hanging on the ropes.  There is an object fixed to it with a piece of string.  It is placed in a plastic envelope, like a material evidence or a relict. There is a one more object, not present before – a car foot pump.

In the depths of the stage there is a character sitting  with his back to the audience.

The man arises, checks the stage, rearranges something, detaches the hanging envelope and carefully puts it aside. 

Then he walks away towards the back of the stage, he is crouching down, untangles the string  and starts to pull something out from the depth.

 

1.

Paper

Kraft paper

There is still more and more of it

It stretches out across the whole depth of the stage

Then it starts to crawl out laterally across the stage

It covers the entire area

It is still lacking the volume

But the man knows what to do

He has the pump for this purpose

He is inserting the air hose into the valve sticking out of the paper

And pumps up

Paper starts slowly to bulge and grows up like a huge pillow or mattress

The hills and valleys are forming

The dunes are forming

Like a beach

 

2. Epeisodion

But this is a real beach!!!

And we can already see the body parts emerging from under the sand: hands, buttocks, legs mixed with the objects: towels, hats, cigarettes, badminton rackets, deck chairs, parasols and newspapers.

The bustle and crowd, a kite, an idol displaying his musculature to the girls, a swimmer, an ice cream and hot sausage seller, flying propeller, rackets and balls , summer heat days, tanning oils, oh, what a heat here...

 

3. Epeisodion

Like the sequences in an old burlesque the scenes start to activate

 

4. Epeisodion

But it is time for walking in the deep end;

An individual in black coat and with a cane and the ice cream guy bring in the spools and reel off the foil, which is to imitate water

The paper boats are floating on the foil and they are drifting towards the back of the stage

Next the waves are stretching backwards moving away the beach to the back of the stage

Now the genre scenes on a beach are seen from a distant perspective (from the sea side)

Unexpectedly in the back of the stage there shows up a female figure in black, with a veiled face and a stick in hand. She is writing something in sand when she walks up to the paper edge

 

5. Katastasis

The festive spirit is distorted

There is something "evil", "inevitable" hanging in the air

The disturbing, annoying buzzing sounds are louder and louder, alarm siren sound is heard

Machine-gun salvoes – panic among the beachgoers

And we see only the beachgoers bodies sinking down into the sand – paper...

 

6. Katharsis

Concerto in Sea-Maior -  

All is covered by the waves and one can hear the swoosh of sea

A Conductor climbs up on a metal tower, like in Tadeusz Kantor's  Sea Happening

He makes a sign with his baton

He conducts...

The swoosh of sea mixes with Brahms's symphony

The double bass produces a steady, disturbing tone

Zosia (Zofia Kalinska) is singing along and she is howling rather

The Sea Concerto goes on...