Demonstration at the Powszechny Theatre in Warsaw against The Curse, directed by Oliver Frljić, 19 May 2017. Photo credit: Marta Keil.

 

Polish Theatre Journal (PTJ) is an online English-language research journal examining contemporary Polish theatre and performance, which is published twice a year by the Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute in Warsaw and the Department of Theatre Studies at the Aleksander Zelwerowicz National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw. 

 

From the introduction to the issue:

Culture is definitely one area of constantly escalating political conflict in Poland. It may even be that the conflict's true nature reveals itself here. The present project of national culture, reinforced by the government, has been designed to some extent as the eradication of public – or civic – culture in its many fundamental functions and essential features, including the programmatic autonomy of institutions and freedom from all forms of censorships, while fostering civil society and wide inclusiveness. According to unambiguous declarations by the current government, the role of national culture is to build an essential identity drawn from a narrative about the exceptional fate of a nation struggling against totalitarianism, which must lead to the turning of Polish society away from challenges of the globalized world deep in crisis, and towards a nationalistic isolationism.

That dynamic, dramatic process sets the perspective from which we look in this issue of PTJ at institutional practices in Polish theatre and in Polish performing arts, asking about the kind of institutions we need – especially in such times of grave crisis – and whether the current institutional model of the arts can efficiently contribute to the democratization of public life.

 

You can read Theatre and Democracy: Institutional Practices in Polish Theatre here.

 

Contents

INTRODUCTION

Agata Adamiecka-Sitek, Marta Keil

Theatre and Democracy. Institutional Practices in Polish Theatre

 

THE CURSE: WHO DOES PUBLIC THEATRE BELONG TO?

Paweł Łysak,Paweł Sztarbowski, Agata Adamiecka-Sitek, Marta Keil

Polish Theatre after Klątwa: Paweł Łysak and Paweł Sztarbowski, directors of the Powszechny Theatre in Warsaw, in Conversation with Agata Adamiecka-Sitek and Marta Keil

 

Oliver Frljić, Agata Adamiecka-Sitek, Marta Keil

Whose National Theatre Is It? Oliver Frljić in Conversation with Marta Keil and Agata Adamiecka-Sitek

 

Agata Adamiecka-Sitek

How to Lift the Curse? Director Oliver Frljić and the Poles

 

Paweł Mościcki

The Village Is on Fire! The Village Is Burning Down! Notes on the Oliver Frljić Production of Klątwa in Warsaw

 

THE SYSTEM: WHAT WE’VE GOT, WHAT WE NEED, WHAT WE CANNOT LOSE

Marta Keil

What Is the Purpose of Institutional Critique Today?

 

Paweł Płoski

Theatre Organization System in Poland

 

Dorota Buchwald

Institution: the Defence of Necessity

 

Weronika Szczawińska

Theoretical Democracies, Practical Institutions

 

Romuald Krężel

The Emancipated Artist

 

Marta Keil, Joanna Leśnierowska, Ramona Nagabczyńska, Maria Stokłosa, Mateusz Szymanówka

When Is Poland’s Sasha Waltz Going to Appear?: Joanna Leśnierowska, Ramona Nagabczyńska, Maria Stokłosa and Mateusz Szymanówka in Conversation with Marta Keil

 

Zofia Smolarska

Institutional Gastroscopy: Publicly Funded Theatre in Poland, Diagnosed by Its Craftspeople

 

OTHER INSTITUTIONS

Jan-Tage Kühling

On the Common Good: The Institution of the Chorus and Images of a Nation in Marta Górnicka’s Theatre

 

Kamila Paprocka-Jasińska

Can Centrala Save Us?

 

Arkadiusz Gruszczyński (ed.)

How Komuna Otwock became Komuna// Warszawa: A Conversation with Alina Gałązka, Grzegorz Laszuk and Tomasz Plata

 

Zofia Dworakowska

The ‘Open Activity Academy’, or: On Akademia Ruchu Centres

 

SUBJECTIVITY – RESISTANCE - DEMOCRACY

Igor Stokfiszewski

Beyond Participation

 

Monika Kwaśniewska

The Actor in the Deadlock of Contemporary Folwark Relations

 

Zofia Smolarska, Justyna Sobczyk, Justyna Lipko-Konieczna

Dismantling Our Own Language: Justyna Lipko-Konieczna and Justyna Sobczyk in Conversation with Zofia Smolarska

 

Ewa Majewska

Censorship as the Formative Mechanism of Neoliberal Culture?: The Productive Function of Prohibition

 

Igor Stokfiszewski

The Workers’ Movement in the Campaign for Democratizing Culture and for Political Democracy

 

THE INSTITUTION OF A FESTIVAL

Marta Keil

The Institutional Practices of a Festival

 

Ewa Guderian-Czaplińska

Demolishing Partition Walls: ‘Auto-theatre’ at the 2016 Theatre Confrontations Festival in Lublin

 

BATTLES FOR INSTITUTIONS – WARS FOR CULTURE

Andrea Tompa

And the Winner Is…Appointing Artistic Directors in Hungary

 

Henrike Kohpeiss

Who Wants a Theatre Company and Doesn’t Have One?

 

THE PEOPLE’S THEATRE

Maciej Nowak

We, The New Public Theatre

 

Ewa Bal

On the ‘People’s Theatre’: a Glance Back

 

Piotr Olkusz

The Pope’s New Clothes: Jean Vilar’s Lay Religion and Popular Theatre

 

Source:

www.polishtheatrejournal.com