An interview series with participating artists and artist collectives of the event: archive of futures II by Montag Modus, July 2023. These conversations are to give a deeper understanding on artists’ working methodologies, their thoughts on the dichotomy of East and West, and in particular, the works they present at Montag Modus’ archive of futures II. Interviews were conducted with Przemek Kamiński, Alicja Rogalska, Marta Ziółek, and Hollow by curator and art historian Zsu Zsuró on the occasion of the event.
Zsu Zsuró: Could you please talk a bit about yourself and your practice?
Przemek Kamiński: I am a choreographer, but I also work as a performer and facilitator. I make choreographic works in various formats and recently started experimenting with different media through which choreography can unfold. Lately, the facilitation of various learning formats became a significant part of my artistic practice.
I have been living in Germany for 10 years. I originally moved here from Warsaw in order to study choreography at HZT Berlin. My initial plan was to move here for three years, finish my studies and go back. But then the right turn happened in Poland, I graduated and certain opportunities opened up for me here. I decided to stay.
Nevertheless, I always had a desire to stay connected with my Polish friends, fellow choreographers and the local artistic community. There are a lot of people, especially in Warsaw, who studied abroad in various schools focused on experimental choreography, similar to mine. For example Marta Ziółek - one of the artists also presenting a work during this edition of Montag Modus - with whom we have been in an ongoing artistic exchange for many years. Last year, I started to regularly teach in Warsaw, at the Experimental Choreography Course, which gives me yet another reason to go back there more often.
Zs: Could you please elaborate on the work you will show at archive of futures II?
P: I had an idea for this work already a couple of years ago. But for a long time, this particular project remained a project description file on my computer. I tried to get funding in Poland, but I never succeeded, even though the project is based on Polish folk dance and folklore culture. Last year, I received funding, here in Germany.
For me, there was always something interesting about Polish folk dance, which I also learned during my early dance education. I had a desire to work with this specific, codified movement vocabulary. The work I will present is a performance “Drops of Tears Glistened on the Flowers” that draws from the movement vocabulary of one of the five Polish national dances - Kujawiak.
TRAILER OF “Drops of Tears Glistened on the Flowers”
Kujawiak is a very emotional dance, originating from Kujawy, a region in central Poland. It developed between the 18th and 19th century. It stems from lower classes and peasants, playing and dancing together in social situations, to be later acknowledged and appropriated by higher classes and aristocracy. Both groups kept improvising upon the form of Kujawiak, developing new steps, figures, and ornaments.
In 1990, Czesław Sroka published “Polish National Dances: A Typology” which included a standardised set of Kujawiak components - the precise number of ten positions for pairs, fifteen types of steps, eleven ornaments, and eleven figures.
The research began with a desire to improvise upon a codified form, again. And from a desire for queering Kujawiak.
Zs: By ‘queering’ do you mean the pre-codification process of the dance, or rather your approach?
P: My approach is directed towards queering this codified form of dance. There is this beautiful definition by Eve Sedgwick. She says queering is about finding open spaces within something that seems to be stuck or is normalized. She calls it “mesh of possibilities”. I think this is my approach to queering and this is how I understand this term. It’s about finding little gaps or trying to shake something that has been codified. Trying to reassemble, deconstruct, tear it into pieces, and then throw these pieces into the air and see what happens.
“Drops of Tears Glistened on the Flowers” is a performance in 4 parts, each around 15 minutes long. They can be presented together or separately. The audience is free to watch it for as long as they want and move freely in the space. It’s not a purely theatre performance, although it has elements of theatricality. For me, this work is a lot about practicing and dancing together and trying to re-improvise and re-embody the form of Kujawiak as a “mesh of possibilities”. Using the dance as a landscape that unfolds and then disappears is the structural approach to this piece.
Zs: In a Hungarian context this work – taking a traditional dance and transforming it into a contemporary performance with the tools of queering – would be very political. Is it political in a Polish context too?
P: Yes, or at least I hope so. Polish national dances were often used as a vessel of nationalistic ideology. To go back and revisit Polish folklore, particularly something that is called a ‘Polish national dance’, within this certain political situation that we are living in right now, is for me both a personal and political gesture. I also believe that working with the body itself is a political gesture, too.
Working with the qualities of Kujawiak, and the emotionality that it implies, was something I connected with the element of water. This element is connected precisely with emotions, tears, and grief, but also with gentleness, calmness, and serenity. I became interested in approaching the movement research from the perspective of the embodiment of the water element. I often think about this each of the four parts of this choreography as evaporating, drilling forward from the spring from the top of a mountain, as flowing peacefully, and as circulating.
Zs: Do you feel you work with identity and body politics predominantly?
P: I care about the body, a lot. I care about the comfort of bodies being together, dancing together, and having a nice time while working together.
There is so much effort and often struggle that goes into making things happen, getting funding, planning, organizing, and all the production aspects. So when we finally meet in the studio, it’s important for me to also have a good time.
Przemek Kamiński is a Polish-born, Berlin-based choreographer, performer and facilitator. His expanded choreographic practice unfolds through various formats and media and engages with embodiment, imagination and sensuality, pleasure and desire. This interdisciplinary approach is reflected in his educational background. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Dance, Context, Choreography (HZT lnter-University Centre for Dance Berlin) and a Master of Arts in Visual and Media Anthropology (HMKW, Berlin). His choreographic works were presented, amongst others at Cinedans Fest at Eye (Amsterdam), Diskurs Festival (Giessen), HAU Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin), K3 | Tanzplan Hamburg (Hamburg), Kunsthalle Zurich (Zurich), Museum of Art (Łodz), Nowy Teatr (Warsaw).
Zsuzsanna Zsuró is an art historian and curator with work experience in cultural institutions and relevant knowledge on contemporary art and culture. As a PhD candidate, she is researching socially engaged art practices in the Hungarian diaspora. Zsuro is specialized in modern and contemporary art theory and practice; cultural policy; alternative art institutional strategies; decolonisation in the CEE region. Zsuro writes to cultural publications as well as presents at conferences locally and internationally. She has created exhibitions such as ‘Resisting Erasure: Queer Art in Hungary’ in Cologne (DE) and ‘Let’s Alter The Narrative’ at Tate Modern, London (UK); was curator of artistic projects like ‘AUDITION’ critically acclaimed by Vogue and Dazed; and created residency programmes such as Project Hu (Ghost Relics) in London (UK). She also has an experience working in major cultural institutions such as the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and the Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art in Budapest.