ZAMEK Culture Centre

Karolina Hamer presents a new challenge. She challenges herself and the audience. A swimmer and activist, a winner of 173 medals - also at the World and European Championships, one of the leaders of the protest of people with disabilities who made the first "coming out" in the world of Polish sport. This time, she will take part in the world's first sit-up. Sit-up is a thought provoking taunt. A completely new, solo-stage and comedy-drama formula. It enables deep immersion in a story of being a homie from a housing estate in Tychy, a champion swimmer, a bisexual woman with a disability. In a hip-hop rhythm, freestyling, we are floating through communist housing estates and Olympic swimming pools, hospitals, schools, parliamentary and street protests - up to the shore, to the question about the place we are in as a society, the place of women and non-normative people. This is the way we arrange the world. It is going to be funny.

“So far, my stage has been mainly the Olympic swimming pools. Theater and sport seem to be two distant worlds but taking part in swimming competitions is also about "performing". On the one hand, theatre is something new for me (a new space for expression), on the other hand, I feel at home here" - Karolina Hamer, the main character in the performance.

starring: Karolina Hamer
direction: Justyna Sobczyk
script: karolina Hamer, Magdalena Staroszczyk
dramaturgy and text: Magdalena Staroszczyk
set and costume design: Magdalena Łazarczyk
music: Sebastian Świąder
visuals: Łukasz Sosiński
lighting design: Dariusz Zabiegałowski
production manager:  Monika Balińska
producer Teatr 21: Marceli Sulecki

(The performance was created in collaboration with Teatr 21 and STUDIO Teatrgaleria.)

"Her story is ready-made material for a film. The stand-up by the paralympic athlete is entertaining and educational. Hamer has what is called a strong stage presence. She seizes the audience, challenges it and establishes a great connection with it at the same time. On the stage, she creates the image of a tough, self-confident girl from Tychy, who pursues her own goal and is not afraid to talk about dramatic failures that she faces from time to time. Finally, she opposes the attempts to be treated like a mascot, whether of the Paralympic, feminist or LGBTQ movement" - Witold Mrozek, Gazeta Wyborcza.

"Hamer is a powerful intimate performance. This is an example of the practical implementation of the postulates of the Teatr 21 related to access to the stage, representation and empowerment of people with disabilities. It also provides food for thought about the socially constructed concepts of disability and fitness and the tension between them" - Marcelina Obarska, Culture.pl