Valeska Valeska Valeska Valeska
The Performa Foundation (PL)
Concept, direction and choreography: Dominika Knapik
Choreographer’s assistant: Dominik Więcek
Creation and performance: Daniela Komędera-Miśkiewicz, Dominika Wiak, Dominik Więcek, Monika Witkowska
Script and dramaturgy: Patrycja Kowańska
Lighting design, video: Wolfgang Macher
Music: Doministry Dominik Strycharski
Costumes: Dominik Więcek
Production manager: Alicja Berejowska (Perform for Change)
Production: Performa Foundation
Partners: Centre for Culture in Lublin, Lublin Dance Theatre, Łaźnia Nowa Theatre, House of Utopia – International Centre for Empathy, Jerzy Grotowski Institute
In the performance VALESKA VALESKA VALESKA VALESKA, four dancers invite the audience into a performative installation somewhere between cabaret, circus, a children’s party and an exhibition in a contemporary art gallery.
The starting point is the life and work of Valeska Gert — her peculiar artistic practice, completely detached from convention — as well as today’s unstable reality, confronted with the working conditions of contemporary freelancers. Perhaps the language of grotesque can be a response to the unstable nature of our times?
Valeska Gert specialised in solo dance miniatures infused with eccentricity and vivid facial expressions. In them, she deformed reality, distorting reality towards absurdity and abstraction, using her own body as an instrument. Considered a precursor of avant-garde performance, she nevertheless never entered the dance mainstream.
VALESKA VALESKA VALESKA VALESKA is a collage based on documentary materials from Gert’s biography, with facts and imagination. It is a time-capsule performance, built on the grotesque presence of performers who address important issues — not necessarily in a serious way.
