ZAMEK Culture Centre

The performances are also accompanied by educational activities and workshops. COMMON THEATRE aspires for an equally powerful effect on the active participants and the audience alike. The effort of overcoming barriers and stereotypes should be made by both.

Performance is a part of the COMMON THEATRE - authorial performative project realize by Zamek Culture Centre in Poznan, which brings us performances created by people from milieus facing social or disability-related exclusion. The eponymous “commonness” denotes first and foremost the universal need to find oneself in a creative process. It is also a token of our intentions and efforts to make theatre created by the disabled or persons facing social exclusion a fully-fledged artistic phenomenon.

When they accepted our invitation to collaborate with CK ZAMEK, the actors had already started working on their next piece, entitled At the Dump, a performance conceived by the members of the company and the director, Hanna Rynowiecka. It premiered in autumn 2016. Since then, NOWI W NOWYM have created three more performances. Ewa Szumska, actress of Teatr Polski in Poznań and contributor to numerous fringe theatre pro­jects, took on herself the responsibility for their artistic form. In 2019, the company was joined by Janusz Orlik, one of the leading Polish dancers and choreographers.

NOWI W NOWYM is a group with quite a history. Its mem­bers are participants of the Occupational Therapy Workshop Przylesie, run by the Association Na Tak. Therapist Hanna Ryno­wiecka, who since 2006 has been using elements of theatre in her practice, started a collaboration with Wojciech Deneka, the late actor of Teatr Nowy in Poznań. As a result, the actors of Przylesie appeared on a real stage, performing in front of numerous spec­tators gathered in the auditorium of a professional theatre. When Common Theatre came into being, the company had already made a name for itself, having staged the much talked about The Loony Bin, among other things.

premiere: November 6th,2017

Inspired by a poem by Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska, the actors and actresses go out on the stage to show themselves in situations which occurred during movement exercises, games, and improvisations at the rehearsals. The resulting choreography brings a surreal ball to mind, but it is that element of the performance which rivets the viewers’ attention the most.

The second performance delivered by NOWI W NOWYM as part of Common Theatre is a tale of desires, thoughts and emotions, set in a surreal aura. The story is governed by randomness while actions such as swimming, flying, and writing, or simple objects – a chair, a stick, or a bit of paper – become an incentive to play around a little. In this new game, the chair can be a boat, the stick a paddle or – if need be – a telescope.