Social Performing Groups and the Building of Community: Odin Teatret, Gardzienice, and Song of the Goat Theatre
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Social Performing Groups and the Building of Community: Odin Teatret, Gardzienice, and Song of the Goat Theatre Anna Porubcansky Goldsmiths, University of London PhD Drama 1 I hereby declare that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Anna Porubcansky 2 Abstract This is a dedicated study of three performing groups with a particular social understanding of performance. Odin Teatret, Gardzienice, and Song of the Goat Theatre have developed unique theatre practices that investigate art as an integrated component of everyday life. The actors’ daily lives incorporate both artistic activities such as training, research, devising, and performance, and social projects such as cultural barters, expeditions, and pedagogical programmes in a conscious attempt to engage with the wider social world. The Odin, Gardzienice, and Song of the Goat’s work therefore extends beyond theatre and into the lives, traditions, and cultural practices of diverse communities around the world. This approach to performance continues a legacy of art that has emerged specifically from Poland as a result of nationalistic and Romantic trends during the nineteenth century. In the eighteenth century, Poland’s borders were erased by the Austrian, Prussian, and Russian Empires. Dividing the country for well over a century, these partitions introduced cultural, linguistic, religious, and political suppression, creating an atmosphere of defiant cultural preservation as the Polish population struggled to assert itself against their oppressors. Artist such as Romantic poets Adam Mickiewicz and Juliusz Słowacki, neo-Romantic dramatist, poet, and painter Stanisław Wyspiański, and, in the twentieth century, directors such as Juliusz Osterwa and Jerzy Grotowski, contributed to a legacy of art that sought to examine and strengthen cultural identity, belonging, and community. Drawing on the theories of Norbert Elias, Pierre Bourdieu, Mikhail Bakhtin, Emile Durkheim, and Ferdinand Tönnies, this study proposes that the Odin, Gardzienice, and Song of the Goat can be considered not only as performing groups but as social groups. 3 Bound together through artistic principles that both define them as unique groups and shape the way in which they interact with the world, these social performing groups represent three unique performance practices devoted to exploring the social connections that connect people in mutual respect and understanding. 4 Table of Contents Acknowledgments 6 Introduction 8 1. The Social Performing Group 30 2. Nationalism, Romanticism, and the Development of 61 Socially Engaged Theatre in Poland 3. Odin Teatret 115 4. Gardzienice 162 5. Song of the Goat Theatre 226 Conclusion 279 Bibliography 293 5 Acknowledgments Many people have contributed to this thesis in so many ways. First of all, this work would not have been done without the tireless guidance and keen eye of my supervisor, Professor Maria Shevtsova, who has spent countless hours helping me shape and refine this work. From our first encounter, her passion for theatre and for the world, her dedication to academic rigour, and her devotion to her students have been an inspiration. She has introduced me to a new way of thinking about art, and for that I shall be eternally grateful. The research presented here is the result of the immense generosity of Odin Teatret, Gardzienice, and Song of the Goat Theatre. My thanks to Eugenio Barba and the actors of the Odin for welcoming me into their theatre, and for sparking a desire to learn more about theatre’s relationship with the world; to Włodzimierz Staniewski and the actors of Gardzienice, specifically Mariusz Gołaj and Joanna Holcgreber, and archivist, Katarzyna Goluch, for their patience and support during each of my visits; and to the members of Song of the Goat, Grzegorz Bral and Anna Zubrzycki, actors Ewan Downie, Gabriel Gawin, Rafał Habel, Kacper Kuszewski, Ian Morgan, Anu Salonen, and staff Katarzyna Maicher, Marianna Wasik, and Pani Ula, for opening their doors to me, for sharing their work so graciously, and for accepting me as a member of the family. Thank you. Special thanks must be given as well to those who have provided invaluable resources for the research presented here. To Michael Burnham and Barbara Wolf, for the kind use of their excellent unreleased video interviews with the members of Song of the Goat; Dariusz Kosiński, Professor of Theatre Studies at Jagellonian University in Krakow, for sharing his as yet unpublished essay on Reduta Theatre; translator Paul Vickers and Richard Gough, Artistic Director of the Centre for Performance Research in Aberystwyth, 6 for permission to cite from their forthcoming publication of Juliusz Osterwa’s letters, Through Theatre, Beyond Theatre (Aberyswyth: Black Mountain Press, forthcoming); Robyn Johnston at ABC Radio National, Australia; Duncan Jamieson and Adela Karsznia, for unfailing help with translations and resources; to Robert Przekwas, for his readiness to help; and to Goldsmiths’ Overseas Research Student Award Scheme (ORSAS), for funding that helped make this research possible. The fifth chapter of this study was developed from my article, ‘Song of the Goat Theatre: Artistic Practice as Life Practice’, New Theatre Quarterly 26:3, pp. 261-272 Finally, to my parents, my new extended family, and, especially, my husband, for their enduring patience, love, and encouragement. All of them will be happy to have me back. A note on transliteration This thesis adheres to the Polish alphabet for names and places in order to present the proper spelling for the people, cities, and plays discussed in this research. This is with the exception of Czesław Miłosz, who transliterates his name in his own publications. When providing titles of performances, I first introduce the English translation before providing the original Polish title. When not indicated, translations are with the assistance of Adela Karsznia and Robert Przekwas. 7 Introduction This thesis is an examination of performing groups who are dedicated to the creation of theatre not only as an artistic activity, but as a social practice. As an art form, theatre is a product of the social world. Composed by actors, directors, writers, and designers with the specific intention to engage with an audience, performance is embedded in social material. From experiences and relationships to emotions, beliefs, and actions, these essential components of our lives contribute to the way in which we function – and create – in the social world. Beyond this, however, theatre is social because it brings people into contact with one another. Whether an improvised comedy sketch or the revival of a nineteenth-century play, the act of performance involves some form of relationship between the actors and the audience. Together, through a constant exchange of socially agreed upon signs – in the form of words, movement, costumes, and music for the actors, and applause, concentrated silence, or vocal dismay from the audience – each group responds to the other, creating a dialogue as both groups respond consciously and unconsciously to one another. At the centre of this study are three performing groups whose work has intensified the social relationships within the theatre. Through a rigorous training, devising, and performance process, Odin Teatret, Gardzienice, and Song of the Goat Theatre have each developed a theatre practice that is an integrated component of their actors’ everyday lives. Understanding each actor not only as a performer but as a social being connected to the larger social world, these three groups have dedicated their work to investigating and strengthening the bonds that bring people together in community. 8 In order to examine the artistic and social function of these three groups, it is necessary to situate their work within a wider sociopolitical, historical, and artistic context. The Odin, Gardzienice, and Song of the Goat represent three generations of performance practice rooted in a specifically social understanding of art that developed from the nationalistic and Romantic movements in Poland during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Empowering minorities and marginalized groups across Europe, these movements had particular resonance in nineteenth-century Poland, whose borders had been dissolved in three separate partitions between 1773 and 1795 by the Austrian, Prussian, and Russian Empires. Until the end of the eighteenth century, Poland had been an expansive territory that was home to a wide range of ethnic and cultural groups, including not only Poles, but Lithuanians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Germans, Slovaks, and Jews. The partitions, however, subjected this otherwise ethnically and culturally diverse population to aggressive programmes of assimilation. By making people critically aware of the social, religious, political, linguistic, and cultural distinctions that identified them as unique communities, the partitions marked the early stages of development of a unified cultural and national identity for a population that had not previously considered itself ‘Polish’. This gradual development of a cultural or national ‘Polish’ identity was by no means a clearly defined process. As Elwira M. Grossman points out, “cultural identity is a constantly changing, unstable product of various signifiers which are inter-dependent elements of a symbolic order constituting an important part of cultural mythology” (Grossman, 2002: 15). By preventing diverse ethnic groups from practicing their own cultural traditions, the partitions in