Common Theatre
Common Theatre is CK ZAMEK’s a long-term project which, over the last five years, has been the most important component of our theatre program.
The portfolio of Common Theatre now spans 13 premieres and 15 outstanding performances by Polish and international theatres / companies / artistic groups. All events enjoyed great interest of our audiences, which filled the auditorium to the very last place.
The project itself is exceptional in that the productions are the result of collaboration with milieus whose dramatic or body work relies on tools and methods that originally served therapeutic purposes, helping people to overcome limitations and difficulties stemming from health issues, as well as adverse social and personal circumstances. We have ensured artistic supervision, financial backing as well as organizational and technical support, so that all participants would be able to reach their goals and develop.
Working with the milieus of persons with disabilities or those at risk of social exclusion, we aspire for an equally powerful effect on the active participants and the audience alike. The effort of overcoming barriers and stereotypes is to be made by both.
Common Theatre is governed by three core tenets. The first recognizes the superior importance of the therapeutic process and dovetails with the well-known precept of primum non nocere. The second posits that the subjectivity of actors and actresses speaking of their fascinations and problems in their performances should be respected and preserved. The third acknowledges that their performances should be approached as any other artistic event, with no special allowances made. This is what the eponymous “commonness” of the project means: it is a token of our intentions and efforts to make theatre created by the disabled or persons facing social exclusion a fully-fledged artistic phenomenon, whose critical evaluation would employ the standard criteria applied to performative arts events.
The international theatres / companies invited to contribute in the project have indeed fully achieved that status. So far, we have cooperated with e.g. RambaZamba Theatre (Germany), Theater Thikwa (Germany), Teatr 21 (Poland), Caroline Bowditch (UK), Teatr Śląski featuring actors with visual impairments (Poland), Compagnie De L’Oiseau Mouche (France), tanzbar_bremen (Germany), Ba-Ku Theatre (Poland), Münchner Kammerspiele (Germany), who presented their performances, held Q&A meetings and conducted workshops. In 2020, we were to host Candoco Dance Company (UK), but due to the pandemic their visit has been postponed to 2021.
However, the most important part of our project is that three theatrical groups led by outstanding, carefully selected artists, function as its part:
- Teatr pod Fontanną led by Janusz Stolarski
- Nowi w Nowym led by Janusz Orlik
- Jest jak Jest led by Grażyna Wydrowska
Each group meets at ZAMEK for rehearsals once a week to prepare the next premiere (one each year) and the revivals of previous performances. So far, we have produced 13 premieres. Many of them have received very favourable reviews in the media, while two have reached the finals of The Best OFF, a competition for the best independent theatre performance in Poland!
Common Theatre. See you there.
