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Program

September 22

Wednesday

  • 7 – 8:30 P.M.

    Freedom Square Premiereresidencyperformative installation

    Roza Sarkisian (Роза Саркісян), Joanna Wichowska, Kiju Szałankiewicz, participants: Jaśmin, Sinoa, masscry, Babcia, Vrona, Piotr Dąbrowski, Barbara Krasińska, Błażej Warkocki; program consultant: Dominika Mądry, collaboration: Przemek Madej

    location: Square in front of the Polish Theatre

  • 9 P.M.

    Long Live Belarus Premiere residencyvideo installation

    Sviatlana Haidalionak (Святлана Гайдалёнак), Paulina Skorupska, Piotr (Pitold) Maciejewski, Katarzyna Klebba (translation to Polish Sign Language)

    location: Square in front of the Polish Theatre

September 23

Thursday

  • 4 – 8:30 P.M.

    Freedom Square performative installationresidency

    Roza Sarkisian (Роза Саркісян), Joanna Wichowska, Kiju Szałankiewicz, participants: Jaśmin, Sinoa, masscry, Babcia, Vrona, Piotr Dąbrowski, Barbara Krasińska, Błażej Warkocki; program consultant: Dominika Mądry, collaboration: Przemek Madej

    location: Square in front of the Polish Theatre

  • 5 – 9 P.M.

    Shelter Premiereresidencyperformansritual

    Victoria Myroniuk (Вікторія Миронюк), Olga Skliarska (Ольга Склярська), Kornelia Trawkowska, Agata Kiedrowicz (the event takes place every 60 minutes, the address will be revealed after buying a ticket)

    location: secret location

  • 7 P.M.

    Imaginary Ballroom

    Jaśmin i Sinoa queer performance and open talk as part of the Freedom Square project

    location: Square in front of the Polish Theatre

  • 9 P.M.

    Long Live Belarus video installationresidency

    Sviatlana Haidalionak (Святлана Гайдалёнак), Paulina Skorupska, Piotr (Pitold) Maciejewski, Katarzyna Klebba

    location: Square in front of the Polish Theatre

September 24

Friday

  • 4 – 8 P.M.

    Shelter performanceritualresidency

    Victoria Myroniuk (Вікторія Миронюк), Olga Skliarska (Ольга Склярська), Kornelia Trawkowska, Agata Kiedrowicz (the event takes place every 60 minutes, the address will be revealed after buying a ticket)

    location: secret location

  • 4 - 8 P.M.

    Queer Metamorphoses with Kiju S1E1

    Kiju Szałankiewicz installation as part of the Freedom Square project

    location: Square in front of The Polish Theatre

  • 6 P.M.

    State of emergency Premierestand-up

    co-production with Komuna Warszawa / Jana Shostak (Яна Шостак) (translation to Polish Sign Language)

    location: Square in front of the Polish Theatre

    from 15 zł
  • 8 P.M.

    H-effect Spectacle

    dir. Roza Sarkisіan (Роза Саркісян) / independent production made with Internationale Heiner Müller Gesellschaft in Berlinie / based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Heiner Müller’s Hamletmachine (There will be a meeting of creators with the audience after the spectacle, host: L. Ilnytska; translation to Polish Sign Language)

    location: The Big Stage of the Polish Theatre

    from 30 zł

September 25

Saturday

  • 1 – 8 P.M.

    Freedom Square performative installationresidency

    Roza Sarkisian (Роза Саркісян), Joanna Wichowska, Kiju Szałankiewicz, participants: Jaśmin, Sinoa, masscry, Babcia, Vrona, Piotr Dąbrowski, Barbara Krasińska, Błażej Warkocki; program consultant: Dominika Mądry, collaboration: Przemek Madej

    location: Square in front of the Polish Theatre

  • 1 P.M.

    In Your Ear

    masscry DJ set and open talk as part of the Freedom Square project

    location: Square in front of the Polish Theatre

  • 3 P.M.

    That Walk Theatrical walk

    Dmytro Levytskyi (Дмитро Левицький), Piotr Armianovskyi (Пьотр Армяновський), Patryk Lichota, Agata Siwiak

    location: gathering in front of the Polish Theatre

    from 15 zł
  • 5.30 P.M.

    That Walk Theatrical walk

    Dmytro Levytskyi (Дмитро Левицький), Piotr Armianovskyi (Пьотр Армяновський). Patryk Lichota, Agata Siwiak

    location: gathering in front of the Polish Theatre

    from 15 zł
  • 6 P.M.

    No one will figure the world out for us Debate

    Jana Shostak - artist and activist, Viktoria Myronyuk - interdisciplinary artist, theatre activist, Kiju Szałankiewicz - a person creating in the visual arts area, Agata Oleynowa - activist, culture expert, Maciej Nowak - art director of the Polish Theatre in Poznan; host Agata Siwiak - art director of Bliscy Nieznajomi (translation to Polish Sign Language)

    location: The Big Stage of the Polish Theatre

  • 1 – 7 P.M.

    Shelter performanceritualresidency

    Victoria Myroniuk (Вікторія Миронюк), Olga Skliarska (Ольга Склярська), Kornelia Trawkowska (the event takes place every 60 minutes, the address will be revealed after buying a ticket)

    location: secret location

  • 8:30 P.M.

    Pandemic.ua Premierevideo concert

    Sashko Brama (Сашко Брама), Maria Jasinska (Марія Ясінська), Witold Oleszak, Rafał Ziąbka, Ostap Mańko (Остап Манько), Marek Straszak

    location: Paint Room of the Polish Theatre

    from 15 zł
  • 9 P.M.

    Long Live Belarus video installationresidency

    Sviatlana Haidalionak (Святлана Гайдалёнак), Paulina Skorupska, Piotr (Pitold) Maciejewski, Katarzyna Klebba

    location: Square in front of the Polish Theatre

September 26

Sunday

  • 1 – 9 P.M.

    Freedom Square performative installationresidency

    Roza Sarkisian (Роза Саркісян), Joanna Wichowska, Kiju Szałankiewicz, participants: Jaśmin, Sinoa, masscry, Babcia, Vrona, Piotr Dąbrowski, Barbara Krasińska, Błażej Warkocki; program consultant: Dominika Mądry, collaboration: Przemek Madej

    location: Square in front of the Polish Theatre

  • 2 P.M.

    National reading of queer literature

    P. Dąbrowski, B. Krasińska, B. Warkocki as part of the Freedom Square project

    location: Square in front of the Polish Theatre

  • 3 P.M.

    That Walk Theatrical walk

    Dmytro Levytskyi (Дмитро Левицький), Piotr Armianovskyi (Пьотр Армяновський). Patryk Lichota, Agata Siwiak

    location: gathering in front of the Polish Theatre

    from 15 zł
  • 3 – 9 P.M

    Shelter performanceritualresidency

    Victoria Myroniuk (Вікторія Миронюк), Olga Skliarska (Ольга Склярська), Kornelia Trawkowska, Agata Kiedrowicz (the event takes place every 60 minutes, the address will be revealed after buying a ticket)

    location: secret location

  • 5.30 P.M.

    That Walk Theatrical walk

    Dmytro Levytskyi (Дмитро Левицький), Piotr Armianovskyi (Пьотр Армяновський). Patryk Lichota, Agata Siwiak

    location: gathering in front of the Polish Theatre

    from 15 zł
  • 5.30 P.M.

    Secret Garbage Enclosure no. se7en

    Babcia and Vrona queer performance as part of the Freedom Square project

    location: Square in front of the Polish Theatre

About

The people of Poznan like to brag about being part of East, their orderliness and diligence inherited from Germans, since Poznan is closer to Berlin than to Warsaw. However, in the era of intense moving around, agreed on closeness and distance, traditional topographies are shaky. Today we’re the closest to broken in half Ukraine and to Belarus, where rage has woken up. Not agreeing to violence is what connects our countries – that is why we can learn the strategy of resistance and empathy and affectionateness from each other. Because we are so close (also in real terms, because there are more and more people in Poland who emigrated from Ukraine and Belarus, for both economic and political reasons), together we can design a better world / better worlds. Because who could do it if it wasn’t for us? We want to speak out (or, sometimes, cry out) about our hopes, trusting that things that have been said have better chances of becoming real.

All projects presented this year will be about dreaming of a safe place: home, city, country, shelter. We will be talking and working in the spirit of activism, responsibility for the planet (all projects produced will be based mostly on already existing materials and objects), and trust in long-term processes. This year’s edition of Close Strangers is based in great deal on a few weeks long residencies and collaborations of artists from East, including the ones already living in Poland.

The works we will present in a few places in Poznan will be born out of collaboration between Eastern artists and Polish creators. Viktoria Myronyuk, Ukrainian interdisciplinary artist and theatre activist, will explore the saving strength of secular rituals during the times of fear of a world catastrophe and loneliness imposed by regulations connected to the pandemic. Ukrainian director Roza Sarkisian will invite us to a utopian house co-created with Poznan's queer community, to find out whether there is a safe territory in the public space for those who are usually forced to hide. Playwright and director from Lviv, Sashko Brama will join forces with musicians living in Poznan and a VJ artist to create a video concert based on documentary testimonies of the pandemic.

Director, actress and animator from Brzesc Sviatlana Haidalionak, along with Poznan's creative community, will co-create a video installation based on the stories of Belorussian women taking an active part in the revolution happening in their country.

Jana Shostak, Belorussian intermedia artist and activist will address the dramatic events outside of our Eastern border. Her creative strategy will be stand-up - satire and black humor, to “distance herself and get some things off her and her comrades' chests in this surreal situation” (this project is co-produced with Komuna Warszawa). The only event presented on a theatre stage will be H-Effect (dir. Roza Sarkisian) - a strong voice of resistance against the hegemony of patriarchal heroic narrations and a project of the new world, where contradictions and conflicts don't disqualify the possibility of creating a community.

We will also invite you for a performative walk executed as part of last year's Close Strangers by a Kiev collective Pic Pic with Polish, activist and immigrant women and women who have experienced difficult life events.

Residencies and premiere projects

As part of each residency there will be an artistic project created in the public space. Artists invited to residencies will explore the tensions between the condition we have found ourselves in because of COVID-19 and a project of new, utopian worlds.

Art Director of ”Close Strangers: East”

Agata Siwiakcurator and producer of theatre and interdisciplinary projects. Associate professor at Theatre and Media Art Institute at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, where she`s created and is conducting specialization for curators and producers of performative arts. As a curator, she works in between the areas of various media, critical practice and socially involved art. Art director of Close Strangers in the Polish Theatre in Poznan since 2016. In 2018-2019, she pursued her own project RePrezentacje: Nowa edukacja at Biennale Warszawa, for which she was given the first award in the Art institutions and museums category at Warsaw Art Education Awards handed out by Warsaw City Hall. In 2012-2017, she used to do a theatre collective in an orphanage in Szamocin, together with people like Michał Borczuch. In 2015, together with Grzegorz Niziołek, she was asked by professor Jerzy Hausner and GAP Foundation in Krakow to curate Teatr POP-UP - critical, “vanishing” anti-institution, and she did her own Interventions cycle at the Polish Theatre in Bydgoszcz. Author and curator of a social-artistic program “Wielkopolska: Rewolucje” (2012-2014) organized by the Great Poland`s Council. That`s how she got nominated for “Paszporty Polityki.” She curated a project called Trickster 2011 - a performative program of the European Congress of Culture in Wroclaw. In September 2011 she became a PhD of Polish and Classical Philology at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan. In 2008 and 2009 she was an art director of the interdisciplinary Dialog Czterech Kultur Festival in Łódź, dedicated to the idea of multiculturalism (with Grzegorz Niziołek). In 2004-2007 linked with the National Stary Theater in Krakow, where she was a director of an international baz@art Intermedia Theatre Forum (with Paweł Miśkiewicz). In 2002-2004 she worked at the Polish Theatre in Wrocław, where she was a program coordinator of EuroDrama Modern Dramaturgy Forum.

Team

Organizer: The Polish Theatre in Poznan
(the city of Poznan’s culture institution)

Co-organizer: The Poznan City Council

Partners: The Ukrainian Institute, The Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute, Komuna Warszawa

Artistic director and curator: Agata Siwiak
Art consultant: Joanna Wichowska

Producers: Прадзюсаркі
Technical manager: Andrzej Szwaczyk
Coordination: Magdalena Matusewicz

Communication & public relations: HORSE WITH WINGS AGENCY Artur Szczęsny, Kasia Gawęska
Design: Danil Daneliuk
Website: Page Tailoring Bartosz Stawiarski
Promotional cooperation: Ewelina Mania, Katarzyna Kamińska

Translations: Kasia Gawęska, Wiktor Szukielowicz, Liuba Ilnytska
Intern: Jagoda Masłowska

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