Agata Adamiecka-Sitek, Marta Keil
Theatre and Democracy. Institutional Practices in Polish Theatre
Abstract
In the third issue of Polish Theatre Journal, we examine institutional practices in Polish theatre in the context of political and social changes. We analyse conditions for freedom of artistic expression and of mechanisms of censorship; we observe significant conflicts and struggles in theatre life, and scrutinize the entanglement of economic, political and aesthetic determinants. We query the possibility of making theatre institutions into social laboratories in which cultural practices for the new democratic order can be developed.
Keywords
democratic system and state institutions; institution; censorship; festival; national theatre; theatre organization; theatre pedagogy
Agata Adamiecka-Sitek
(1974), graduate in cultural studies from the University of Silesia. Author of the book Teatr i tekst. Inscenizacja w teatrze postmodernistycznym (“Theatre and Text. Staging in Postmodern Theatre”, 2006) as well as several dozen essays and articles published in the magazines Dialog, Didaskalia, Teatr, Notatnik Teatralny and collected volumes. Founder and editor of two publication series – Inna Scena and Nowe Historie – and editor of numerous books on theatre. Recently led the project and was on the editorial board of the first edition of Jerzy Grotowski’s Teksty zebrane (“Collected Texts”). Works at the Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute, where she manages academic projects, including a programme of research on Polish theatre from a gender and queer perspective. Research on construction of gender and sexuality in Grotowski’s theatre was also the subject of the semester-long course which she designed in 2011 for the Jerzy Grotowski Institute. Worked with Marta Górnicka on the Chorus of Women project. Teaches at the National Academy of Dramatic Art, as well as gender studies at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Marta Keil
(1983), performing arts curator, based in Warsaw, Poland. Since 2012 she curates together with Grzegorz Reske Theatre Confrontations - international performing arts festival in Lublin (www.20.konfrontacje.pl). She created and curates the East European Performing Arts Platform (www.eepap.org). Worked as curator and dramaturg with i.e. Agnieszka Jakimiak, Rabih Mroué, Agata Siniarska and Ana Vujanović. In 2014 and 2015 she worked as curator at Teatr Polski in Bydgoszcz (www.teatrpolski.pl) and co-curated Festival of New Dramaturgies (http://www.festiwalprapremier.pl/en/). One of the initiators and curators of the Identity.Move! project (www.identitymove.eu). Editor of the book “Dance, Process, Artistic Research. Contemporary Dance in the Political, Economic and Social Context of “Former East” of Europe”, published in 2015. PhD student at the Polish Academy of Science's Art Institute. She writes a blog www.fraukeil.wordpress.com.
