 |
Czesław Robotycki The “Province” from an Anthropological Point of
View. A Reflection from the Perspective of Cultural Communication
Dilemmas
The terms “province” and
“provincial” describe not only a place but also a state of mind
or culture. An analysis of the semantic field of this concept
indicates its contradictory associations and annotations. The
contemporary communication-related organisation of society renders
the term in question less useful for anthropological analyses.
Peripheral environments and their culture are better described by
the “local quality”, universally applied in anthropology ad
sociology. Today, the ”province” is a category encountered in
the belles letters, where it shall remain.
Zbigniew Benedyktowicz “Coming Back Home. The Italian Experience of
Tarkovski and Kantor”
The topic of the presentation is an
analysis of the specific perception of
Europe
by two great artists from the East: Andrei Tarkovski (Nostalghia 1983) and Tadeusz Kantor (Wielopole,
Wielopole,
1980, a
theatrical spectacle staged as part of the Florentine programme at
Teatro Regionale Toscano, Florence). The motif of the return home is
inscribed into the Italian cultural landscape and experiences. The
next problem is the inclusion of local, own cultural tradition into
the universal entity. Both works share the motif of coming back home,
nostalgia, the experiencing of the province, an epiphany of poor
reality, and the significance of “lowest rank regions”.
Analysing the structure of those motifs and imagery as well as their
concurrence with the essence of the symbol (a confirmation of
identity, a token) the author considers the message contained in
both visions – cinematic and theatrical – and its meaning for
the contemporary European dialogue. This is a meaning concurrent
with the ideas of an anthropological- cultural and European insight,
aimed at searching for, and discovering unity in diversity.
Dariusz Czaja The Paradox of the Province
The point of departure for this
article is composed of two brief texts by Federico Fellini and
Slawomir Mrożek referring to the phenomenon of the province. Upon
their example the author depicted the titular paradox of the
province: the fact that in order to actually perceive the province
and put it to creative use one must abandon it and view it from a
temporal and spatial distance. In this artistic phenomenology of the
province the myth of departure encounters the myth of the return. In
both texts the province reveals itself as a true and animating
source of creativity.
Leszek Tyboń Returns
The author of this succinct article,
fascinated with local communities in the
Land
of
Sandomierz
, intended to demonstrate the manner in which they faced the
necessity of defining their future in altered conditions.
Bogdan Białek The Province – between the Backwater and the Sticks.
The Confessions of a Province Dweller
”It is worth knowing where the
boundary between the metropolis and the province, the backwater and
the sticks actually runs” – wrote the author while analysing the
problem of the centre and the periphery during the ”In Praise of
the Province” session. In doing so, he proposed abandoning a
division into that which is central, i. e. connected with the great
agglomeration, and that which is provincial, i. e. located outside
the city. The era of globalisation coincides with a decline of the
institution of the traditional province, which is actually situated
within ourselves, similarly to an awareness of the centre of the
world in which we reside. It is strictly up to us whether we live in
the ”sticks”, which the author considers to be dull and
encumbered with complexes, or whether we live in the very centre,
emphasising that which is essential for our daily life and enhancing
its value.
Wiesław Szpilka My Province
The metropolis and the province are
the figures of an existential situation rather than a description of
material reality. It is not surprising, therefore, that the same
place may be evaluated differently. A black hole where all is lost
will become a territory full of life. The accounts by Andrzej
Stasiuk portraying a
Europe
from the very peripheries of the world show just how radical such a
reversal can be. Focused on the opposition of interest to us, we
continue to labour on the demarcation of the actual boundary between
its components. The metropolis and the province, life and death, the
intense and the weak, the dark and the lucid, the open and the
closed, the happening and the recollected, all these categories
introduce order into reality but also conceal and, even more so,
lose an existence that cannot be expressed with their assistance.
The continuum, transition, enclosure, and otherness of the same, as
well as the horrendum of the metropolis- province comprise the flaw of ethnographic reflection
closely adhering to life and experiencing reality.
Filip Chodzewicz, Małgorzata
Dziewulska, Piotr Kłoczowski, Agnieszka Morawińska, Janusz Palikot,
Maria Stangret-Kantor, Andrzej Wajda, Natalia Zarzecka Umarła klasa (The Dead Class) by Tadeusz Kantor and
Kadysz (Kaddish) by Jan Kott
A register of a conversation held at
the
Warsaw
"Zachęta" Galery about a new edition of Jan Kott's book
on Tadeusz Kantor as well as Andrzej Wajda's DVD version of the
spectacle Umarła klasa.
Andrzej Wajda I was Tadeusz Kantor’s Assistant
The director described how for a
single day he became Tadeusz Kantor’s assistant while recording
the spectacle Umar? a Klasa (Dead Class). Concluding, he reflects that an assistant may be a genius
creating all that the director conceives but he will never receive
his due praise.
Natalia Zarzecka Towards
Florence
. The Discovery of Traces. Tadeusz Kantor and the Cricot 2 Theatre
Abroad 1968-80
The text recounts the beginnings of
the foreign career of the Cricot 2 Theatre and its founder, Tadeusz
Kantor. The author recalled the localities of the first tours abroad
and the artist’s other performances, together with the persons and
festivals that contributed to his growing popularity as well as that
of his company in
Italy
and the
United Kingdom
. The reader accompanies Kantor on his artistic journeys, starting
with International Artists Meetings in Vela Luka (Yugoslavia, 1968)
and successive tournées In Italy, France and England (Kurka wodna /The Water Hen/, Rome 1969, Nancy and Paris 1971,
Edinburgh1972; Nadobnisie i
koczkodany /Beauties and Baboons/, Edinburgh 1973 and Rome and
Paris 1974, Umarla klasa /The Dead Class/, Rome 1978) to recollections of the
artist’s happenings performed outside Cricot 2, although sometimes
involving actors from his company (Szafa / Wardrobe/ after Witkacy’s W malym dworku /In a Small Manor House/, Baden-Baden
1966, a
series of happenings shown in Bled in 1969 and recorded in D.
Mallow’s film Säcke, Schrank und Schirm, participation at I Atelier International des Recherchés Théâtrales
in Dourdan near Paris, 1971). The article makes special mention of
Achille Perilli and Richard Demarco, who continued the presentation
of the Tadeusz Kantor Theatre, and the exhibitions accompanying the
theatre’s performances abroad. The author discussed more
extensively the Florence Programme (1979/1980), which led to a new
spectacle: Wielopole,
Wielopole (premiere in Florence on 23 June
1980), as well as assorted recent art undertakings (exhibitions,
publications, symposia), making it possible to take a closer look at
the breakthrough in the history of the Cricot 2 Theatre, which, as
it later became apparent, inaugurated the last decades of its
activity.
Anna Królica The Actor’s Bodily Expression in the Tadeusz Kantor
Theatre of Death in the Perspective of Theatrical Dance
An attempt at comparing the Pina
Bausch Tanztheater Wuppertal with the works of Tadeusz Kantor from
the period of the Theatre of Death, examined from the vantage point
of work with the actor, direction methods, the structure of the
spectacle, and the rejection of the categories of time and plot. The
central theme, however, is the actor, who by rejecting verbal
expression communicates with the spectators primarily by resorting
to his body and physical presence. The actors’ body articulates
assorted emotions by means of controlled tension. Similar techniques
of the “use” of the body are discernible in Chaplin’s silent
movies and modern dance from the early twentieth century. The
corporal form of expression appears to be quite natural for
theatrical dance, and in this case – for the Pina Bausch
Tanztheater, but such an interpretation of the problem within the
context of Kantor’s work appears to be a new and tempting research
aspect.
Joanna Jopek The Returns of Odysseus
“This is a theatre, and not a
private flat! This is a private flat but also a theatre!”. Words
uttered in the second half of the spectacle On.
Drugi powrót Odysa (He. The Second
Return of Odysseus) focus on three important themes of the last
production staged by Jerzy Grzegorzewski: turning the boundary
between the private and the “political” in art into a problem,
indicating the meta-theatrical dimension of the spectacle and,
finally, referring to a concrete experience and historical moment.
In June 1944 Tadeusz Kantor showed Powrót
Odysa (The Return of Odysseus) in a private
flat in
3 Grabowskiego Street
in
Cracow
at the time of the German occupation. The presented sketch is an
attempt at following Kantor’s traces in the Jerzy Grzegorzewski
staging and at discovering an answer to several questions: what
links Powrót Odysa from 2005 with
the version from 1944? What is the significance of the drama and
Wyspiański? Finally – probably the most important question of all
– why did Kantor act as the patron of such a difficult and bold
declaration, intent on settling accounts?
Małgorzata Szczurek Andrzej Wajda. Ethnographic
Remnants. An Exhibition
The author describes an exhibition
held at the
Ethnographic
Museum
in
Cracow
, showing the less known side of Andrzej Wajda – his connections
with ethnography. The exhibits originate from assorted periods in
the director’s life and display his years-long interests,
initiated by a meeting with Prof. Roman Reinfuss, who collected and
catalogued valuable art works that survived the war in the environs
of
Cracow
and in the region of Podhale.
Andrzej Wajda Ethnographic Remnants
Andrzej Wajda wrote about his first
contacts with Polish folk art, cooperation with Prof. Reinfuss,
which left a trace in the form of two documentary films about folk
art (Ceramika iłżecka / Pottery from Iłża/1951/ and Zaproszenie
do wnętrza /Invitation Inside/, 1978) as well as
notes from many museums all over the world, where he drew
interesting exhibits.
Bogdana Pilichowska The Ethnographic Notes by Andrzej Wajda
While attending film courses Andrzej
Wajda did not foresee himself as a director of feature films but
considered the grotesque cinema and educational movies. The author
recalls the director’s notes from 1948, made during his stay in Iłża,
which he then used for his first documentary film Ceramika iłżecka
(Pottery from Iłża, 1951). She also
recalls a list made by Wajda in 1952, entitled Projekty filmów dokumentalnych (Projects of documentary films), containing 19 titles with several
ethnographic projects.
Bogdana Pilichowska Andrzej Wajda – Topics He Was Advised to Tackle. 1958–89
The article was based on letters
preserved in the Andrzej Wajda Archive, containing proposals of
assorted scenarios, themes and problems which the authors of the
correspondence wished to bring to his attention. The first letter
comes from 1958, and the last one – from this year. In view of the
fact that it is simply impossible to discuss the whole collection in
a brief article, B. Pilichowska selected examples from 1958–89.
The year 1989 – a time of great changes in the life of
Poland
and the Poles – comprises a caesura involving a systemic
transformation, an end to censorship, an opening onto the world, and
new social problems, all vividly reflected in letters addressed to
Andrzej Wajda. Archival folios entitled Proposals contain 168 letters from the examined period. The article intends to show
the manner in which the Polish “average spectator” perceived
Andrzej Wajda as an artist, a Pole and a person. The choice of the
featured proposals omits men of letters and professional authors of
screenplays, both Polish and foreign.
Michalina Lubaszewska ‘Small space cinema’ as an anthropological and
mythological place. Literary and film images as the anthropological
testimony.
The subject of this article is
‘small space cinema,’ which is situated in opposition to
‘large space cinema’ – the symbol of our times. In Marc
Auge’s term ‘small space cinema’ is an anthropological place, which has its own identity, is symbolic and is able to create communion
(or bonds) between the spectators during the projection. ‘Small
space cinema’ refers to the tradition of cineclubs, which were
founded in
France
in the 1920s and have all but disappeared. This type of cinema is
not found in large numbers, but is quite popular because it is part
of the contemporary ‘nostalgia’ for ‘retro’ things and
places. In Roland Barthes’ interpretation, the ‘small space
cinema’ is also a kind of ‘mythological’ place; this means
that each element of the projection room (the screen, the seat, the
darkness) has its own significance. Many depictions of ‘small
space cinemas’ can be found in literature, poetry and film, which
points to the anthropological and mythological character of these
spaces. I call these works ‘anthropological testimonies.’ They
all evoke common elements: a small space, coziness, privacy intimacy,
the darkness; they have common functions: space for a date (also
entertainment?) These literary, poetic, and filmic descriptions
evoke the idea of the ‘small cinema’ as ‘home’ or ‘asylum’,
which can be compared to the Gaston Bachelard’s theory of
‘oniric home’. The element of the darkness can be referred to as
the ‘règime nocturne’ of Gilbert Durand. In the
conclusion, the author returns to the three emblematic images of
‘small cinema’: Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso, Trenet’s Mon vieux cinè
and K. I. Gałczyński’s poem Małe kina. These three examples simultaneously reinforce and create an ideal
mythological and anthropological model of this kind of cinema. All
of these images can be defined by the convention of kitsch which
generally contribute to the popularity.
Antoni Kroh Well-born
The author went on a literary journey
to the past. Describing successive ”miraculous” escapes of
assorted members of his family – a great grandfather almost hanged
during a peasant rebellion, a grandfather saved from being lynched,
and the author’s mother, who evaded a firing squad during the
Second World War – he reached deep into the past. Nostalgically
skimming over places and epochs, A. Kroh dusted off images of
history. This proximity and intimacy of reminiscences features a
past that comes alive and in the author’s account becomes outright
palpable.
Antoni Kroh Working Intelligentsia
By introducing the reader to
fragments of his family’s biography and describing his childhood
experiences, the author pondered on a definition of the qualities of
the elite and the intelligentsia. The latter term, essentially
characteristic only for our post-partition and post-communist
geographical region, is, together with its idealistic and useless
dimension, forced to tackle daily reality.
Małgorzata Omilanowska The Marian Sanctuary in Lichen: Architecture and Art as
an Instrument of Historical, Religious and National Identification
in Post-communist
Poland
The Marian sanctuary in Lichen is one
of the most impressive phenomena associated with the cult of the
Virgin Mary in
Europe
. Today, it is the second most frequented pilgrimage site in Poland
after Jasna Gora in Częstochowa – an immense architectural-town
planning-garden premise which emerged in slightly more than thirty
years, centred around a gigantic millennial basilica, the largest
church in Poland, the seventh largest in Europe and the eleventh in
the world, erected in 12 years thanks to voluntary donations. For
all practical purposes, the Lichen basilica violates every canon of
architectural design, starting with Vitruvius, despite the fact that
it indubitably tried to become part of a centuries-old tradition.
The basilica’s architecture demonstratively refers to the past but
at the same time disavows it by applying a strategy of pretence,
characteristic for the category of kitsch. The basilica’s
architect, Barbara Bielecka, envisioned her design as part of the
centuries-old history of Mediterranean civilisation, to be compared
to the only surviving wonder of the ancient world – the Cheops
pyramid. She cherished a profound belief that she correctly
deciphered and applied Biblical directives concerning the erection
of temples. Her projects of the church, and the number of columns,
porticos, orifices, chapels, etc., refer to numerology, combining
various concepts and interpretations. An essential fragment of the
project involves an attempt at evoking Polish national tradition by
referring to associations with local nature, art and crafts. The
gigantomanic architecture, glossy and featuring garish colours,
frequently refers outright to art déco from the turn of the 1920s,
while the interiors, full of marble, gilding and crystal chandeliers,
bring to mind opulent hotels and exclusive residences straight out
of Dallas or Denver, thus
turning Lichen into a Catholic Las Vegas; equally justified are
associations with Romanian socialist realistic architecture from the
“late Ceausescu” era. The phenomenon of Lichen’s popularity
consists in the fact that it ideally corresponds to the expectations
harboured by droves of pilgrims from all over Catholic Poland. The
aesthetic assessment expressed by a pilgrim touring Lichen is based
on his personal experience, and within this category it matches his
anticipations, becoming a synonym of lavishness and might, as well
as evidence of generosity reaching the very boundaries of “the
possible”. The popularity of Lichen is supported by a well-devised
marketing strategy. The donors are commemorated by means of marble
plaques (17 000 are featured on the walls of the lower church!),
while the popularisation of Lichen involves, i. a. a system of
special “excursions”, a method well-known in Europe and
sponsored by firms distributing their products via direct sales. In accordance with the opinion voiced by
Ms. Bielecka, claiming that “one simply cannot offer the Lord God
something modernistic on His birthday”, the basilica has been
planned as a postmodern work. It lacks, however, one of the most
postmodern features, namely, a ”light-hearted” treatment of
architecture. As a fitting offspring of its time, the basilica is an
intentional reaction to modernism and, unrestricted by rules, it
borrows from tradition; the only problem is that the books, guides
and folders on its topic are so deadly serious. In his reflections
on national identification Edensor defined the concept of the
evocative site of popular culture and gatherings. In accordance with
his definition, the Lichen sanctuary became a consciously meaningful
site and, simultaneously, a place of popular culture created for
Polish Catholics and enabling their identification with
historical-messianic and Marian-religious myths, in this case
treated as an indissoluble conglomerate and providing an unambiguous
cultural source, making it feasible to reinforce national identity.
By referring to folk religiosity suffused with a belief in miracles,
Licheń is to act as an antidote against the contemporary world; at
the same time, it is to turn the pilgrim away from that world by
creating an enclave of Catholic religiosity and genuine Polishness
envisaged as a remedy capable of curing all global ills. Lichen
lacks anti-European Union propaganda or the obnoxious anti-Semitism
so typical for Radio Maryja, and prefers a model of anachronistic
religiosity. Its patriotism is intellectually and religiously
enclosed, devoid of reflection and cramped; sadly, it corresponds to
the predilections of a great number of the faithful and the clergy,
thus abusing trust in the value of “folk Catholicism”.
Nikolai Evrieinov The Theatralisation of Life
In his essay The Theatralisation of Life (1915) Nikolai Evrieinov formulated a distinction of
great value for studies on the theatre, demonstrating that every
person possesses a „theatrical instinct” which compels him to
perform a constant transformation that, in turn, leads to a
theatralisation of life. The author sought proof for the theatrical
character of our existence among the primeval peoples, in ancient
Greece
, the „savage” tribes of Africa, and the behaviour of certain
animal species, as well as in fashion, entertainment, the army,
politics, seventeenth-century
Spain
, or
France
under Louis XIV. His models of people capable of making perfect use
of the merits of theatrical qualities include Napoleon, Catherine
the Great and Suvorov. The Theatralisation of Life is more than merely a specific interpretation of the history of the
theatre. The text is predominantly anthropological and philosophical:
Evrieinov claimed that the theatre is the most primary form of art,
closest to man. He also argued that it is theatralisation (in other
words, transformation) and not aestheticisation, which constitutes
the foundation of art.
Katarzyna Osińska The Evolution of Soviet Mass-scale Spectacles (from
1917 to the 1930s)
The point of departure for the
titular theme of mass-scale spectacles in post-revolutionary Soviet
Russia (and from 1922 – the
Soviet Union
) are the differentiated and contradictory sources of this
phenomenon. On the one hand, the latter referred to the concept of
the “masses” which, according to its class interpretation, did
not represent society as a whole but predominantly the proletariat,
and in certain versions – exclusively the proletariat from highly
industrialised factories and large cities. On the other hand,
mass-scale spectacles emerged from pre-revolutionary idealistic
conceptions of the renascence of culture via the rejection of individualism and a return to primary
sources focused on the commune. These notions, inspired by views
expounded by Nietzsche, were propagated and developed in
Russia
by Viacheslav Ivanov, the idea of “bogostroitelstvo”, which
combined Marxism and religion (Lunacharsky, Alexandr Bogdanov, et
al.) and the idea of “sobornost”, stemming from the Russian
Orthodox movement and represented by, i. a. Nikolai Berdyaev. The
first post-revolutionary years featured two discernible and mutually
hostile tendencies in culture: the project of objectifying the
proletariat, expressed in the idea of the “mass-scale theatre”,
and, on the other hand, the “theatre for the masses”, according
to which the masses were treated as an object and passive recipients,
and art – as a tool of ideological indoctrination. The first
project was developed chiefly upon the basis of the Proletcult. In a
suitable sub-chapter the author recalls the polemic between Lenin
and Proletcult ideologues, with special emphasis on the inner
contradictions both within the Proletcult ideology and the stand
represented by the Bolshevik party. A depiction of the Proletcult
ideology in the domain of the theatre encompasses also its less
known aspects (with reference to forgotten source material), such as
the rejection of the copyright “fetish” (which rendered possible
an unrestricted adaptation of the classics) and a new conception of
the theatrical company: radical Proletcult theoreticians proposed a
total abolition of the function of the director (who personified the
old bourgeois system based on hierarchy) and his replacement by a
collective. In the new theatre, as envisioned by Proletcult, the
actor was to become the foremost expression of mass-scale and
collective principles. The successive sub-chapters discuss assorted
forms of the mass-scale theatre: amateur theatricals, the theatre in the armed
forces, mass-scale performances (including the most famous Capture of the Winter Palace), communist rituals, political carnivals, as well as
marches, parades and demonstrations from the 1930s. Examples of the
spectacles and their descriptions come from Soviet texts (1918 –
mid-1930s). The author brings the reader closer to the political
context of the mass-scale spectacles, paying particular attention to
the disputes waged by the Bolshevik party and avantgarde artists,
and concerning the form of political propaganda and new culture in
general. The article’s leitmotif concerns the evolution of
mass-scale spectacles, from carnivals and theatrical shows based on
the idea of activating the masses, to demonstrations and parades,
which imposed a certain rigour upon the masses and expressed the
might of the Soviet state.
Krzysztof Rutkowski Anthropogenesis and a Tick
Baron Uexküll was a greatly original
thinker endowed with a sense of humour and cosmic imagination, who
claimed to have kept an unfed tick absolutely isolated in laboratory
conditions (the tick was unable to find a victim) for 18 years. The
insect sank “into a state of anticipation”, a dream-like
condition resembling the process of falling asleep experienced by us
each night. Uexküll could not find an explanation for the tick’s
longevity. He wrote that: “Time does not exist without the
existence of a living organism”, and Agamben added: ”What
happens to the tick and its world, asleep for 18 years? How is it
possible for a living organism, whose life depends entirely upon
‘significant points’ to survive for so long while deprived of
them? How can one speak about ‘waiting’ beyond time and the
world?”.
Wiesław Szpilka A poor Ethnography
A commentary formulated from the
present-day perspective and relating to a poll published in 1981 by
the editors of ”Polska Sztuka Ludowa”. The author embarked upon
an attempt an analysing the condition of contemporary ethnography.
Sławomir Sikora From the Viewpoint of a Ghanean Photographer
The film Future Remembrance. Photography and Image Arts in Ghana by Tobias Wendl and Nancy du Plessis (1998) proposes an
interesting examination of the significance and condition of
photography in
Ghana
at the turn of the 1980s. Its authors considered such issues as the
comprehension of realism and truth in photographs as well as the
rank of the photographer. Although the statements made by assorted
photographers make it possible to include the understanding of the
photographic image into such concepts as indistinguishability (H-G.
Gadamer), in the author’s opinion they may be just as well treated
as a special game played with realism, photography and reality. |
