PERFORMANCE
Baltic Gallery of Contemporary Art
Centre for Creative Activities in Ustka
/ ul. Zaruskiego 1a
Jolanta Juszkiewicz – Kropka Theatre
Stolpmünde – Ustka / 194
Curated by
Weronika Teplicka
Performance and exhibition
Creative Activity Center in Ustka
admission free
25.06.2024 / 6 p.m.
The day before the performance there will be a dress rehearsal open to the public
Creative Activity Center in Ustka
admission free
24.06.2024 / 6 p.m.
Artists about the project
„The residency project will involve the realization of an original documentary theater about the history of the expelled Germans and the Poles who settled in their place in Ustka as well as in Pomerania in 1945. Inviting the local community to participate, the author’s narrative and moving performance will be created. It is tempting to explore history with the imagination, where the senses capture emotions and try to understand those who lived here before. Through the movement of bodies reminiscent of human shadows and an installation of words and sounds, my intention will be to restore the intermingling moments: the spirit of the fleeing Germans with the spirit of the Poles entering their homes. The evoked emotions of the fate of the civilian population of the opposing fronts will remind us that injustice hurts just the same. The residency project will additionally offer the local Ustka community the opportunity to participate in workshops on poor theater enriching knowledge of alternative creative forms, and a guest performance complementing the theme of displacement in 1945.” /Jolanta Juszkiewicz
Jolanta Juszkiewicz
MA in Art, graduate of the Academy of Theater, acting department, Wroclaw, Performance Studies Sydney University, Australia. Participant of Khalid Tjabj’s master classes at Sri Ram Centre, Delhi, India, Tor Arne and Jerzy Grotowski’s students at Grenland FriTeatre in Porsgrunn, Norway, Alehandro Ronceria ‘Native Indian Dance’ in Toronto, Canada, Eugenio Barba’s ISTA International School of Theater Anthropology, Odine Teatre in Holstebro. In 1997, in Sydney, Australia, she founded the professional author’s Kropka Theatre. In duo with New Zealand director Anatoly Frusin, she has led the premieres of both world classics and documentary performances awarded and invited internationally by, among others, Prof. Richard de Marco to the Edinburgh International Arts Festival. Since 2007, she has been developing Kropka Theatre with a base in Poland. Functioning in the spirit of poor theater, she performs in a continuous stream of international invitations. She has presented in Australia, Albania, Armenia, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, France, Finland, Nagorno-Karabakh, Iran, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Germany, Ossetia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Scotland, Sweden, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, United Kingdom, United Emirates. She has returned to many countries with a new performance, directing or workshops. She participates in competition and seminar panels, conducts acting workshops and directs companies outside the Kropka Theatre. She has received scholarships from the Ministers of Culture (twice), the Marshal of Pomerania and the Mayor of Warsaw (twice). She has won Australian Cultural Trust, international Grand Prix and acting awards, as well as journalists’ chapter awards for promoting Polish culture around the world. In 2022 she celebrated 25 years of Kropka Theatre. Under the support of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, she carried out a program of events, published a monographic publication and a series of analyses and scientific statements showing Jolanta Juszkiewicz’s working method to be of extraordinary value to Polish culture. In 2023, the Polish-Australian Pol-Cul Foundation awarded the creator for “connecting people in the world through theater,” honored in the national competition Polka XXI in the section Culture. As part of the theater’s quarter-century anniversary, she participated with her monodrama Mother by S.I. Witkiewicz at the Sydney Fringe Festival in Australia, where she was awarded an Eldon and Ann Foote Trust grant to realize and premiere a new play in the 2024 edition. The artist notes that the body is a key point of reference for any kind of art. She is interested in exploring organic sensory impulses and the body’s relationship with partner objects in the creative process. The body of the viewer, which, moved by the emotions of the actress, engages the spiritual realm by moving with the story and becoming part of the world of metaphor, is also of great importance.
Subsidized by the Museum of Polish History in Warsaw under the program “Patriotism of Tomorrow” 2024