MOTHERS. A SONG FOR WARTIME - Teatr Powszechny

RETURN

MOTHERS. A SONG FOR WARTIME

director

Marta Górnicka

premiere

29 September 2023

running time

ok. 1 h

stage

scena duża

UPCOMING SHOWS

buy tickets

Mon 13 May
hour 19.00

buy tickets

Tue 14 May
hour 19.00

outside the theater

Sat 18 May
hour 19.00

outside the theater

Sun 19 May
hour 19.00

REPERTOIRE TICKET PRICES

PHOTO GALLERY

VIDEO

CREATIVES

cast – Liza Kozlova, Palina Dabravoĺskaja, Svitlana Onischak, Kateryna Taran, Svitlana Berestovska, Valeriia Obodianska, Sasha Cherkas, Mariia Tabachuk, Yuliia Ridna, Natalia Mazur, Aleksandra Sroka, Katarzyna Jaźnicka, Bohdana Zazhytska, Anastasiia Kulinich, Hanna Mykhailova, Katerina Aleinikova, Elena Zui-Voitekhovskaya, Kamila Michalska, Maria Robaszkiewicz, Polina Shkliar, Ewa Konstanciak

concept, directing – Marta Górnicka
libretto – Marta Górnicka & Ensemble (UKR, BY, PL)
music – Wojciech Frycz, Marta Górnicka, traditional music (UKR, BU, PL); quote from “Shchedrivka” Nikołaj Leontowicz
choreography – Evelin Facchini
stage design – Robert Rumas
costumes – Joanna Załęska

costumes designer's assistant – Maria Wierzbicka
dramaturgy consultation – Olga Byrska, Maria Yasinska
video, video documentation – Michał Ruma, Justyna Orłowska

video projections – Michał Jankowski

lighting – Artur Sienicki
vocal coach and vocal preparation – Joanna Piech-Sławecka

director assistant – Bazhena Shamovich

stage manager – Sylwia Mączarowska
choreographer assistant – Maria Bijak
physical workshops – Krystyna Lama Szydłowska

Ukrainian translation of the libretto – Olesya Mamchych
Belarussian translation of the libretto – Maria Pushkina
English translation of the libretto – Aleksandra Paszkowska
Ukrainian Ethnomusicologist consultation – Anna Ohrimchuk
Ukrainian children games consultation – Venera Ibragimova
translation during rehearsals – Marharyta Huretskaya
subtitles – Zofia Szymanowska

producers from THE CHORUS OF WOMAN Foundation – Marta Kuźmiak, Iwa Ostrowska

international tour producers from THE CHORUS OF WOMAN Foundation – Alicja Berejowska, Anna Galas-Kosil
producer from Teatr Powszechny (Warsaw) – Magdalena Płyszewska

production – THE CHORUS OF WOMAN Foundation
in coproduction with – Teatr Powszechny (Warsaw); Maxim Gorki Theater (Berlin); Festival d’Avignon; Maillon, Théâtre de Strasbourg – Scène européenne; SPRING Performing Arts Festival (Utrecht); Tangente St. Pölten – Festival Für Gegenwartskultur (Austria)

partners of the project – Teatr Dramatyczny im. Gustawa Holoubka (Warsaw); Nowy Teatr (Warsaw); Euro Scene Festival Leipzig; Ukrainian Institute; Foundation for Freedom in Warsaw (independent non- profit public organisation focused on migrants from Ukraine, Chechnya, Belarus, Tajikistan, and other countries who settled in Warsaw, and all the greatest activities are addressed to them); “Przystanek Świetlica” – “Bus Stop: Community Centre” (day room for children and youth of migrants); Solidary Community Centre “Słonecznik” (community centre of Ukrainian artists in Warsaw).

Project is co-financed by City of Warsaw.

In cooperation with the Allianz Foundation.

SYNOPSIS

"Our show is about mothers and the war.

About defence mechanisms, about responsibility.

About our reactions to the war in Europe.

About the rituals of war violence against women and civilians that remain the same"

(Marta Górnicka).

The wartime rituals of violence towards women remain unchanged. The war poses ultimate questions to Europe – regarding responsibility in the face of danger and about our defence mechanisms. From the testimonies of mothers and children – Ukrainian, Belarusian and Polish: those who escaped from the war, those who fled from persecution, and finally, those who opened their homes for them in Poland – Marta Górnicka, the director and author of THE CHORUS OF WOMEN, the founder of the Political Voice Institute in Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin, is now creating a choral play with her team.

It is a group of 21 Ukrainian, Polish, and Belarusian women, aged 9 to 71, each of them with a unique political experience and varying life story. They are refugees from Mariupol, Kyiv, Irpin, and Kharkiv. This CHORUS OF MOTHERS FOR WARTIME is looking for a new, post-opera choral voice that refers to the female choirs of the 7th century BC.

Ukrainian children's rhymes, traditional songs, spells and political statements all meet and mix with each other.

The spectacle "for the wartime" begins with shchedrivka (щедрівка in Ukrainian) – a traditional Ukrainian song, a wish for happiness and rebirth. Its story dates back to the pre-Christian times and it is probably thousands of years old. The ritual of performing shchedrivka was reserved for women or women with children and it was always performed for a specific person. People believed in the power of this song, they trusted that its words and good wishes would come true. Now, these sung wishes are addressed to everyone – for a new time and for their whole lives.

– "In the past, the CHORUS was supposed to sanctify the exceptionality of life, to help with rebirth, renewal. It was a force opposite to the force of DESTRUCTION. Our spectacle draws from that power".
(Marta Górnicka).

– "When Ukraine screams, we need practices from long before the birth of theater that CHORUS brings. We need the theater with its power of change. With its power to remember what is the most horrible and what the trauma of war would like to remove from the limelight. A theater of new forms of solidarity and new rituals. A place, where a better world is imaginable and possible" (Marta Górnicka for "Theater der Zeit").

Marta Górnicka about working on the spectacle – an extract from the interview for the Avignon Festival and her speech during the event: here.

***

Reading at the Festival d'Avignon: July 23, 2023. More information: here.

Premiere: 29.09.2023, Teatr Powszechny, Warsaw.

Premiere in Germany: 04.11.2023, Maxim Gorki Theater, Berlin.

Premiere in France: 04.10.2023, Maillon, Théâtre de la Ville de Strasbourg, Strasbourg.

***

International tournée:
October 4, 5 and 6, 2023 – Maillon Théâtre de Strasbourg Scène européenne (France)
November 3 and 4, 2023 – Maxim Gorki Theater (Germany)
March 27 and 28, 2024 – El Teatre Lliure de Barcelona (Spain)
May 23-25 and 28-31, and June 1, 2024 – Spring Performing Arts Festival (Utrecht, The Netherlands)

June 5 and 6, 2024 – Landestheater Niederosterreich et Tangente St. Pölten – Festival Für Gegenwartskultur (Austria)
June 15 and 16, 2024 – Theatre Democracy Festival (Freibourg, Germany)

July/August 2024 – Festival d'Avignon