Gazeta Wyborcza

Dancing universe in Łódź’s opera-house.

On friday evening “Meetings in two unfilled acts” opened the 21st Łódź Ballet Meetings. Ewa Wycichowska in this eclectic and intentionally inconsistent multimedia show denied ballet habits of the audience.
Łódź Ballet Meetings: “Meetings in two unfilled acts”, directed by Ewa Wycichowska.
“Meetings…” are like a palimpsest – a manuscript,  from which the previous text was wiped out due to write new words on it. When you look at this parchment carefully you can see old meaning intermingle with new ones. General idea of Wycichowska’s play was to meet the artists who worked together in the past and artists from younger generation in one shared project.
Music – juggling various rhythms from samba through tango to futuristic feedbacks – was written by Krzysztof Knittel, notable composer, who collaborated with Wycichowska in her choreographic debut from 1980 – “Female voice”. Art decoration, video and costumes are the work of Ewa Bloom-Kwaitkowska, authoress of stage design to many plays (i.a. to Wycichowska’s “Faust goes rock”), tv entertainment shows, avant-garde fashion shows and advertisement campaigns in Poland and abroad. Wycichowska invited to the “Meetings…” artists of Grand Theater Łódź and Polish Dance Theatre. Also those who already retired from their dancing careers. Among them were Anna Fronczek-Lewandowska, who performed solo dances in “Female voice” and “Faust goes rock” and Anna Gruszka-Kopeć, known from “The Rite of Spring” and “Dangerous Liaisons”. They are just two of many examples. 
Although “Meetings…” are multi-leveled repetition, they are not just a nostalgic meditation on the past. Because of the presence of young dancers what is repeating of artistic gestures and motifs known from Wycichowska’s previous works actually becomes a challenge to the future. Literal repetition kills the art. Choreographer while preserving the memory of what was, managed to escape from this deadly trap.
One of the common patterns in Wycichowska’s work is self-description, known from “Transss…” and “Spring – Effatha” plays. Bloom-Kwiatkowska’s stage design uses “raw” construction of Grand Theatre without an attempt to create new worlds. There is no room for playing with illusion: we are in the theatre, we watch scene after scene and changing systems, that does not constitute an organic whole nor tell a coherent story. They create untranslatable to words thought about life of an artist, his dreams, inspirations and physical limitations.
During more than two hours of  “Meetings…” another traditional demarcations falls: partition into parts, acts, audience and stage, dancers and technical crew. Even before the prelude Daniel Stryjecki, dancer of The Polish Dance Theatre, is walking between the spectators with video camera, displaying on large screen people looking for their seats, whose focused faces soon will be replaced with tighten body of sensational Silje Äker-Johnsen. “Meetings…” do not loose their dynamic even during intermission. Wycichowska did not allow the audience for a break. With Krzysztof Raczkowski she built another ballet image in a specifically created cage in foyer. In the same place where over thirty years ago debut “Female voice” took place.
Following scenes flow imperceptibly one into another, in a postmodern style questioning ideas to which we are accustomed by western culture: from the beginning to the end, whole and part, identity and difference.
Bourgeois and old-fashioned audience,  for whom ballet fossilized in one canonical form about fifty years ago, might have felt confused. For those though who know Wycichowska’s style, “Meetings…” were nonlinear, impressionist and multithreaded journey into dancing universe. Without final destination, because ballet, claims Wycichowska, is a constant voracity.  

Gazeta Wyborcza Łódź, Igor Rakowski-Kłos, 01.05.2011