Gosia Wdowik She was a friend of someone else

Gosia Wdowik explores the link between burnout and activism: the fear that rights are not acquired forever.

performance, KFDA
SA 20.05.2023 22:00 premiere
SU 21.05.2023 16:00 + artist talk
SU 21.05.2023 20:30
MO 22.05.2023 20:30
TU 23.05.2023 19:00

This production comes to us from a country where women have limited access to reproductive health, and abortion is now illegal. Despite massive protests, women there were simply denied their rights. The project started with the idea that women could come together without shame or fear to publicly manifest that they had an abortion, and that this collective act would change the law. It could be an activist success story. But She was a friend of someone else is a story with too many beginnings, too few endings – and an exhausted narrator. With a powerful dramaturgy and a minimalist direction, Polish theatre-maker Gosia Wdowik explores the link between burnout and activism: the fear that rights are not guaranteed forever, and that the moment one stops paying attention, they can disappear. Through a personal narrative, she describes the commitment to women's rights in Poland. Her subtle storytelling draws us into the life of a woman who decides one day, instead of protesting, to stay in bed, eventually rising again.

English, Polish → FR, NL, EN
±1h

Gosia Wdowik (1988) is a theatre maker and active member of GILDIA (Union of Polish Theater Makers). Her heart is based in Poland but her imagination is always somewhere else. During her Master Studies at Das Theater (2020-2022), she worked with the topic of burnout and explored the space between exhaustion and agency by implementing methods from activism into her artistic practice. Her main question was: How to create both theatre and change from a place of exhaustion? In her recent performance Shame she explored social shame connected with working-class origins in her own family over three generations of women. Past works include If you lived here with Tamara Antonijevic, Transit Monumental together with K.A.U. kollective, Fiasko and Return of Goddess. With Girls and Football players she tackles the topic of bodily emancipation.

 

Presentation: Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Beursschouwburg
Concept, text and direction: Gosia Wdowik | Dramaturgical support: Maria Rössler | Visuals and creative technology: Jimmy Grima | Set design: Dominika Olszowy, Tomasz Mróz | Light design: Aleksandr Prowaliński | Performed by: Jaśmina Polak, Oneka von Schrader, Gosia Wdowik | Work with/by: Agnieszka, Dominika, Jaśmina, Ania, Urszula, Marta K., Justyna, Natalia, Julia, Martyna, Ola, Małga, Krystyna, Marta, Zosia, Edka, Doris, Yulia, Agata, Kinga, Beata, Iza, Zuza, Ewa, Magda 
Production: Nowy Teatr, CAMPO | Coproduction: Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Teatro Municipal do Porto, SPRING Performing Arts Festival, Frascati Producties, HELLERAU - Europäisches Zentrum der Künste, SPIELART Festival, Dublin Theatre Festival, Beursschouwburg, Points communs - Nouvelle Scène nationale de Cergy-Pontoise/Val d'Oise
Special thanks to: Jan Tomza-Osiecki, Marta Jalowska, Dorota Glac, Kamila Worobiej, Martyna Wawrzyniak, Marta Nawrot, Keerthi Basavarajaiah, Justin Schembri 
She was a friend of someone else is part of a research based on I’ll just say it and see what happens created by TERAZ POLIŻ (Marta Jalowska, Dorota Glac, Kamila Worobiej), Martyna Wawrzyniak and Gosia Wdowik, which was premiered on 21.12.2021

image © Thomas Lenden

Theatre, dance, performance and visual arts: Kunstenfestivaldesarts is a celebration of international contemporary creation. From 11 May to 3 June 2023, it invites artists both local and international to challenge our understanding of the world and present their bold artistic creations in some thirty cultural venues and public spaces in Brussels.
www.kfda.be

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