Weronika
Pelczyńska
choreographer, dancer, performer
Weronika Pelczyńska (she/her) was born and lives in Warsaw, Poland. She is an independent female artivist and movement researcher working in the fields of choreography, dance, performing arts, theater and film. She graduated from the Experimental Academy of Contemporary Dance SEAD in Salzburg as well as Warsaw University of Technology (Faculty of Production Engineering and Faculty of Management) and Warsaw University (Institute of Polish Culture). Her artistic development was supported by a scholarship awarded by City Hall Warsaw, the Institute of Music and Dance in Warsaw, by Adam Mickiewicz Institute, the Alternative Dance Academy of the Art Stations Foundation by Grażyna Kulczyk and 2013 danceWEB scholarship. She teaches at the Aleksander Zelwerowicz National Academy of Dramatic Art and the SWPS University in Warsaw.
She is interested in collective forms of leadership that bring bodily awareness and create art. Since 2013 she has collaborated with Centre in Motion (Centrum w Ruchu) - a space for performing arts in Warsaw, ICoDaCo 2018-2020 (International Contemporary Dance Collective). Since 2019 together with Magda Fejdasz and Monika Szpunar she has been running a choreographic initiative called sisterhood practice. Their recent work, produced by the National Museum in Warsaw, “The Sculpturesess” was chosen as one of Aerowaves Twenty24. Together with researcher - dr Aleksandra Janus and FestivALT, she explores sisterly forms of connecting choreography in public spaces and care for the common past. They develop this archive in the framework of the “Still Standing” project.
On her path she has appreciated all of her artistic meetings, especially collaborating with Matej Kejžar, Agnieszka Glińska, Agnieszka Zawadowska, Anna Nowicka, Maria Stokłosa, Peter Pleyer, Stephanie Thiersch, Jozef Frucek and Linda Kapetanea, Rafeala Giovanola, Joanna Leśnierowska, Magda Szpecht, Nina Martin.
fot. Marek Zimakiewicz
Magda
Fejdasz
actress, performer, choreographer
Curently based in Warsaw, Magda is a graduate of acting (dance theater specialization) at The Ludwik Solski State Drama School in Cracow (AST), Department of Dance Theatre in Bytom (2013). She took part in the Choreo Lab Warszawa-Zurich program - workshops for young dancers and choreographers from Poland and Switzerland (Centrum w Ruchu, Warsaw 2013) and Teatr Formy - Performer's Activities which was a cooperation between Groteska Theatre in Krakow and Carte Blanche in Bergen (Carte Blanche, Norway 2014). She created her first choreographic works during the scholarships: TanzMedienAkademie creative program at Bauhaus Universitat (Weimar 2010) and the Creative Scholarship of the City of Przemyśl (2016).
Magda is interested in interdisciplinary work, at the center of which she places the body in a situation of encounter. She is interested in the issue of the viewer's driving power.
Since 2010 Magda has been exploring multiple kinds of collaboration and collective work in different roles: as an actress, dancer, performer, choreographer, and educator. She believes that changing the roles one chooses in creative processes stimulates and broadens one's perspective. Magda has experience in cooperating with informal collectives and NGO’s, institutional theaters, museums and film productions. She explores how different models of collaboration can strengthen individual perspectives and voices.
At the same time, she believes in the power of long-term cooperation. Among other artists, she collaborates with choreographer and dancer Weronika Pelczyńska (The Haunting, Centrum w Ruchu 2016, The Sphericals, Teatr Kochanowskiego in Opole 2021, Refrakcja, choreografia spojrzeń, Instytut Teatralny w Warszawie 2022, Big gender/ Back on feet, Cracow Dance Theater 2022, The Sculptresses, National Muzeum in Warsaw, 2023) and theater director Daria Kopiec (Syrena. Anatomia Miłości, Teatr Współczesny we Wrocławiu, 2022, Kruk z Tower, Teatr Ludowy w Krakowie 2023, Księga Dżungli, Teatr Maska w Rzeszowie, 2023, Gotki, Teatr Nowy w Słupsku, 2023).
fot. Helena Ganjalyan
Monika
Szpunar
dancer, performer, choreographer
Monika is an independent performance artist, dancer and choreographer working internationally mostly between Poland, Czech Republic and the UK. She received her training in ACTS/ Ecole de danse contemporaine in Paris and London Contemporary Dance School. In 2016 she spent 7 months in Brazil collaborating with local artists and studying at Unicamp University in Campinas.Monika’s choreographic experience ranges from creating black box pieces, being a movement director for theater and film productions to making site specific and outdoors performances. She is interested in bringing movement to new, unconventional spaces; in social activism through dance and the meeting of choreography with other disciplines. She usually works in collective and interdisciplinary set ups, exploring possibilities of non-hierarchical ways for working and creating.
Monika is a co-creator of BADBODYCHAOSCODE (fka The Yonis), a member of the choreographic initiative sisterhood practices as well as a member of the Laboratory of the Body of the Krakow Choreographic Centre. As a dancer, she has been recently working with POCKETART ( Johana Pocková and Sabina Bočková), Viktor Černický (PRIMA) , Weronika Pelczyńska ( Still Standing, Kuliści), Kasia Witek ( Memory Score), Stefano Silvino (PRZESADA) among others.THREE SCULPTURES/ BODIES performance around Ursula von Rydignsvard’s sculptures presented at the National Museum in Krakow; TANECZNIE I SOLIDARNIE dance protest; and a prize winning short dance film "100m" are just some of examples of Monika’s recent artistic creations.
@mon.szpunar
monikaszpunar.com
fot. Deborah Lotti
Aleksandra
Janus
scholar, scientist, writer
Dr Aleksandra (Ola) Janus holds PhD in Anthropology from the Jagiellonian University in Cracow (Poland).
She is an activist and a researcher as well as initiator of numerous cultural and artistic projects and working groups, author of academic articles and publications. In her academic work, she focuses on the Holocaust and researches memory cultures and the role institutions play in the process of institutionalization of discourses about the past. She is a president of the Zapomniane Foundation aimed at locating, marking and commemorating forgotten burial sites of the Holocaust victims in Poland.
Janus closely collaborates with the Research Center for Memory Cultures (Jagiellonian University) and a member of a publishing council of a book series “Exhibiting Theory”. She is also a director of Centrum Cyfrowe (CC, Digital Center) - a think-and-do-tank based in Warsaw advocating for more humane and socially responsible technologies as well as creator and head of Open Culture Studio operating within CC as a tech lab for heritage institutions.
She is a co-curator of ‘Exercising modernity’ program aimed at critical rethinking of the legacy of modernity in Poland, Germany and Israel. She co-founded and curated the ‘Museum Laboratory’ (Laboratorium muzeum) - an educational program in critical museology for Polish heritage professionals. In her collaborations with cultural heritage institutions she is interested in the social role of cultural institutions and their relationships with their audiences, she specializes in the analysis and implementation of participatory strategies, audience research, as well as digital transformation and opening access to heritage resources. Recently, she co-founded two initiatives advocating for museums to take action in the face of the climate crisis: a working group ‘Muzea dla klimatu’ (Museums for Climate) and Culture for Climate collective.
fot.
Patrycja
Kowańska
dramaturg, director, performer
Dramaturg, director, performer. A graduate of the Academy of Theater Arts in Krakow, majoring in directing, specialty: theatre dramaturgy (2018). For the past 10 years she has worked as a dramaturg with directors and choreographers in multiple institutions in Poland and abroad. In her artistic work she combines text with an interest in the body and movement (dotcompany founded with Bartosz Ostrowski, from 2020 cooperation with choreographers Dominika Knapik and Weronika Pelczyńska) She cooperates also with the German theater collective "kainkollektiv", as a dramaturg and translator.
Three-time scholarship holder of the city of Krakow (2017, 2021, 2022) and the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in the field of theater (2020). Author of the master's thesis titled: "The dramaturg’s movement. An attempt to construct a toolkit of body dramaturgy, installation and performance”, excerpts of which were published in the monthly "Didaskalia" (no. 151-152/2019) and the AST publication in Krakow entitled "Dramaturgy. The Guidebook” (2021).
In 2023 she began her path as a performer, with the work „Furor” - a short mono performance about fatphobia. Most recently together with Dominika Knapik she has established a duet under the name of Fat and Dumb. Their first performance, „Very Funny” was awarded at the 27th Shakespearan Theatre Festival in Gdańsk with the main ShakespeareOFF Award and the Press Award.
fot. Magdalena Kasjaniuk