Akademia Ruchu: A Future Already Past

Abstract

This article considers the productions of Akademia Ruchu (the Academy of Movement), a cutting-edge institution of culture established in 1973 – a decade informed by increased activity in socially-committed student circles and by a heightened political consciousness in Polish repertory theatre. The company’s output has been marginalised in Polish theatre studies, labelled primarily as ‘alternative’ or ‘student’ theatre. The article attempts to inscribe Akademia Ruchu productions on the map of contemporary Polish theatre. The history of mainstream twentieth-century theatre has managed to erase most memory of Akademia Ruchu – a company that had been strongly present and internationally acclaimed, linking the domestic theatre world and the world at large, which this company embodied. Here, the Akademia Ruchu output is analysed as political situation(ist) theatre focused on the examination of the present. Key to issues discussed throughout the text are community, the body (the corporeal) and the mundane (the quotidian). Akademia Ruchu activities are presented as the praxis of community making a collective effort to think by dint of actions, where social forms are inextricably linked with aesthetic ones.