Premiere November 17, 2024 in the Gdańsk Shakespeare Theatre
More informaction here
Choreography: Ramona Nagabczyńska
Performers: Magdalena Kowala, Natalia Murawska, Joanna Woźna, Anna Zglenicka
Music: Jakub Janicki
Lighting Design: Jędrzej Jęcikowski
Production: Stowarzyszenie Córy Kultury
Producer: Agnieszka Czichy
The premiere of the performance is co-financed by the National Institute of Music and Dance as part of its program "Choreographic Commissions – 2024 edition," funded by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
Ramona Nagabczyńska and Hertz Haus are taking on the topic of functioning within a collective. What is common in building a collective and working on choreography is the processual nature. Both the collective and the choreographic process seem to live their own lives, gaining their own agency, which members and co-creators must listen to and support. Each collective, just like each choreographic process, represents a new language, new rules of operation, and a new sensitivity. In short - a new world.
This will not be a performance about collectives in general but about the collective that is Hertz Haus. For this purpose, we will draw on the experiences of the group, for which we will find choreographic equivalents. We will ask ourselves questions that will help us better understand the nature of the entity that Hertz Haus co-creates, including: Does every voice really carry the same weight? Can there be a terror of collectivity? Where are the boundaries of compromise? What is the relationship between personal responsibility and collective responsibility? What motivates the co-creation of a collective?
Both critical perspectives on capitalism and opposition to old patriarchal models of cultural production—based on the absolute power of the artist-guru (especially strongly promoted by the Polish theatrical tradition)—have led artistic environments to begin glorifying collective work. Its attractiveness increases the more the hierarchy, around which many unfounded values have grown (such as violence, absolutism, and lack of respect for personal boundaries), is discredited. However, both the members of Hertz Haus and choreographer Ramona Nagabczyńska (who has collectively led the Centrum w Ruchu organization for thirteen years) conclude from their own experiences that collective work solves certain problems, but new ones arise in their place. Co-creating a collective is always experimental, as we do not have ready models to draw from, unlike work based on a hierarchical system. Each collective develops its own system of operation, which must also be adaptable to the constantly changing conditions, goals, and needs of the group members. The work undertaken by the collective is always the work for a specific project as well as the work for the self-determination of the collective.
Ramona Nagabczyńska is interested in bringing to light the particular voice of the Hertz Haus collective. Not only the voices of individual group members but the voice of the entity they have brought to life. A voice that is something more or less than the sum of its individual voices.
