online event program of diskurs35 partner

CHANGE NOW!

Open events by Erasmus+ Strategic Partnerships for Higher Education

Registration is obligatory for all of "Change-now!" open events. The registration is free and lasts few minutes. Each "Change-now!" event has separated registration form. A link to the event will be sent in the confirmation message on e-mail address given in the form after registration. If you have any questions, write to: changenow@e-at.edu.pl

www.changenow.at.edu.pl

10-11th of October. The Club. Free online access to the video registration

Location: online


Language: Polish with English subtitles


Duration: 2 hours
Registration link

NOTE: the performance shows scenes of description of sexual violence and it is intended for viewers aged 16 and older.

Co-production:
 Collegium Nobilium Theatre, The Aleksander Zelwerowicz National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw,
 TR Warszawa Theatre

The Club – a performance based on Matilda Voss Gustavsson’s book – is part of Change-Now! programme coordinated by The Aleksander Zelwerowicz National Academy
of Dramatic Art in Warsaw. Initiated by graduate female acting students who did not want to accept the gender discrimination they experienced at school, the performance is an act of women empowerment on many levels. The book that shocked Swedish society by revealing violence and sexism in elite cultural circles also analyses the mechanisms of violence in any cultural institution, including theatre schools. That was a starting point for developing the performance.

Young actresses invited Weronika Szczawińska to this unique collaboration – renowned director, dramaturge, performer and lecturer at the National Academy of Dramatic Art
in Warsaw.

 

The process of work focused on empowerment of all collaborators was crucial for that project. Even before writing the script, the director and actresses started the open, partnered conversations about what interested them most in “The Club” – A character? An episode? A situation? A theme? Which plot? On the basis of such conversations
a proposal for the director’s copy was made.

Connecting individual woman’s voices, this story of violence is at the same time a story about partnership, safe and courageous work of women speaking out about issues that are important to them. On some level, each performance tells the story of the process by which it was created. “The Club” does this in a particularly intense way. It’s in the structure, in the relationships of the actresses with each other and to the audience, in the theatrical language, there is an encoded narrative about a different way of creating. And that is a part of the intense conversation that we are in right now at the National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw.

“The Club” panelists:


– Weronika Szczawińska, director
– Dobrawa Borkała, co-author of the staging concept, therapeutic consultation and breath work
– Marta Szlasa-Rokicka, director’s assistant

 

Actresses of The National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw, co-creators of the performance:


– Julia Biesiada
– Julia Borkowska
– Maria Kozłowska
– Katarzyna Lis
– Adrianna Malecka
– Magdalena Sildatk
– Bernadetta Statkiewicz
– Monika Szufladowicz
– Helena Urbańska
– Emilia Walus


Moderator: Agata Adamiecka-Sitek

The debate will be based on the co-creators experience as the innovative model of work within the “The Club” consists in abolishing the hierarchy of student-master and actor-director in favour of an equal partnership of all male and female creators, while dividing roles according to the degree of responsibility for the learning process and the dynamics of group processes. The aim of the work on the performance is to take into account the needs of the female students and to democratise the process of working on the performance. An important, if not key, aspect of the work on “The Club” also concerns the creation of the performance: the grassroots initiative of the female students, the diagnosis of the problems of exclusion and, finally, the cooperation of the female students with the students’ ombudsperson and the university authorities, followed by a joint development of solutions to the problem. And an attempt at their practical implementation, resulting in the premiere of The Club.

12 October 2021, 2 p.m. CET 
Debate with the co-creators of The Club

Location: online and live in The National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw, Kreczmar Hall
Language: English
Duration: approx. 1 hour 30 minutes
Registration link only for the online event

13 October 2021, 11 a.m. CET
 Debate: Empowerment, diversity, democratization. How we're changing theater schools


Location: online, Zoom meeting


Language: English


Duration: approx. 1 hour 30 minutes 


Registration link

In the whole Europe we can experience now an intense debate about the necessary changes in theaters and theater schools. Greece, the Czech Republic and Poland and other countries witness a wave of revelations about power’s abusement, psychological and economic violence, sexual harassment, exclusion and brutal hierarchy. It seems that we are already able to describe and show the mechanisms of violence. It is essential to focus on counter-practices now. How to create a safe space in drama schools? How to ensure real empowerment of students? How to strengthen diversity that confront hierarchies and inequalities?   How to dismantle existing structures to build alternative futures?
The representatives of students and teachers from drama schools in Warsaw, Prague, Gothenburg and Malmö are going to talk about the situation in their schools. The attention is dedicated to a question how to build alliances and how to strengthen the intersectional approach to change.

Moderator: The National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw

 

Guests:

– The Malmö Theatre Academy // The Lund University, Faculty of Fine and Performing Arts and guests, Sweden

– The Academy of Music and Drama University of Gothenburg, Sweden
– The Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, Theatre Faculty (DAMU), Czech Republic

Debate on the examples of changes. Intimacy coordination as a tool for theatres and movie makers.

 

Moderation: Witold Mrozek

Guests: Żenia Aleksandrowa, Agnieszka Róż, Kaja Wesołek, Anna Zabrodzka – intimacy coordinators

 

This meeting will be held live in Warsaw but we will record it and publish with English subtitles on our project website: www.changenow.at.edu.pl. 


14 October 2021, 7 p.m. CET Safe sex so what is an intimacy coordination

Location: The National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw, Senate Hall, Building D


Language: Polish