ADAM & EWA – DON'T COMMIT ADULTERY

These ten „commandments” are enough as short characteristics of the performance- „Adam and Eve”, the premiere show of which took place on October 19, 2007 during Theatre Activities Festival ART POINT in Chorzów. Dominik Złotkowski, accompanied by Anna Biernacka that he invited to cooperate with, is the idea-maker and main creator of the performance. Similarly to the majority of events done by Złotkowski, also “Adam and Eve” makes a reflection over the reality. The problem of infidelity and its consequences are shown is a symbolic way here.

Dominik Złotkowski- a graduate of the Zielona Góra University. He also graduated from the postgradual studies within censorship in art at the Higher School of Humanities and Journalism in Poznań and the postgradual studies within gender at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow. For two years he followed an individual studies curriculum in his institute and the institute of art. The founder and president of the university gallery of art. The organizer of theatre workshops, all-Polish festivals of performance art, and photography exhibitions. After graduation, he received the job offer from the university. For 5 years as an academic teacher he was teaching classes to students from the theatre laboratory and performative art faculty. The author and performer of many street actions (years 1995-2002). The creator and performer of several performances in Poland and abroad (years 2001-2015). The founder of an artistic duet C.H.U.K. (Centrum Hamowania Uderzeń Kultury- The Centre of Culture Strikes Retardation). With this group – the shows of the “works” in Poland and abroad within the Polish Cultural Presidency in 2011.

An actor in the amateur Theatre Terminus A Quo (years 1995-1999). Since 2002 he has been involved in many Poznań theatre groups as an actor and co-creator. The theatre Usta Usta Republika [Mouth Mouth Republic] (2002-2015), Teatr Ósmego Dnia [the Eighth Day Theatre] (2007-2015), a cofounder and creator in the group Circus Ferus (2012-2015). He has also cooperated in several theatre initiatives with the Theatre Porywacze Ciał [Body Abductors].



„In “Adam and Eve” a significant role is played by an apple. This prop symbolizes the forbidden fruit of the good and bad recognition. Picking it from a tree is associated with sin. A number of women from the audience were involved in this performance. Each of them performed the same role and was treated identically. Wearing carmine lipstick each was just another partner of Adam, who was making series of love. The following concussion is drawn- the relationships of a disloyal lover with his rightful partner can only be heeled by abstinence from the relationships with other women. It is scary how easy it is to destroy what connects two people.”

Małgorzata Wielgosz, Miłość wystawiona na próbę. [Love put to test] Piąta ściana nr [Fifth wall no.] 03(42) Gazeta Festiwalowa Studenckiego Ogólnopolskiego Festiwalu Teatralnego [Festival Magazine of the All-Polish Theatre Festival] KONTESTACJE  Lublin 02.12.2007     

FAST LOVE FAST SEX

- We are showing how banalised the relationships between people have become. How artificial, plastic and void of meaning the words such as “love” or “hate” have become- Anna Biernacka said before the Thursday evening show of the author’s performance in Rura Club at 38 Aleja. A young actress and known culture animator presented the project "Fast LOVE Fast SEX”, which combines the elements of painting, film and theatre. She was supported by Łukasz Tabaka on the stage, in one of the club’s rooms Anita Grobelak showed her paintings, and there also was Karol Barton’s film show. The audience watched a sad story of female-male relationships and love that is only for show. There was flirting, tender gestures, and nudity. The only thing missing was the real love.

Anna Biernacka talks about love
New performance of a young actress and known culture animator.
Olga Trojak Gazeta Wyborcza Częstochowa
http://miasta.gazeta.pl/czestochowa/1,35270,3940381.html

MAGAZINES

„Anka Fugazi provided us with her own impression of womanhood, carnality and consumptionism. Sitting on a chair, surrounded by a pile of colour magazines, deeply involved in the reality created by the gaudy headlines, she lost her individuality. As if she was a soulless puppet, she tried to deal with the demands a contemporary woman has to face. Spotlessly slim, of velvet skin, (the body…-a real piece of art). The artist, aware of her own imperfection, started exercising and covered her body with the pages torn out from magazines. With the audience help in a short time she became an advert, slogan and colour picture poll. Her final activity was covering her face with a paper mask and saying thank you to the audience that “it was the end”. When our face becomes paper and eyes, instead of reflecting the soul, only reflect TV and radio desires- this is really the end. Fugazi in an eloquent and original manner forced us to think of our individualism, thin and easily crossed order of sovereign choices.”

Jacek, Magazyny. Piąta ściana no. 02(41)
Festival Magazine of Students’ All Polish Theatre Festival KONTESTACJE
Lublin 01.12.2007

Mal aimée

Performed by Fugazi
Choreography by Karolina Słowik

The performance shows the process and the effects of the process that a contemporary woman has gone though towards independence. Using movement that derives from dance as a form of expression, I want to show the crisis of masculinity that has been progressing over the last few years. Dance makes the symbol of female delicacy here that under the influence of “male” gadgets has become heavy and tiring and changed this subtle image of a woman.

MOTHER

God, Jesus Christ, God’s Mother, these are the forces that are present throughout our whole lives. Of course, if we believe in them. We can receive a life-giving energy from them. The mother is an energy giver. Our future life depends on how we use that energy. The mother is only at the beginning of the way, makes the first source of the life-giving energy. Matka [Mother] makes a performative project that uses plastic bottles in the shape of God’s Mother, bought at the Jasna Góra Monastery stalls, in which I want to show how important the energy of mothers is for me. Using the elements, gadgets bought at the Jasna Góra Monastery I am also trying to stress the showiness of the Polish religiousness and its reduction it to the plastic bottles in the shape of God’s Mother for a life-giving (holy) water.

POLISH MOTHERS THE EIGHT OF MARCH

When an intelligent woman says with assurance: "I'm not a feminist", I feel like making her deposit her womb unless she becomes clever again. In this country one must be a feminist"
Manuela Gretkowska

Matki Polki Ósmy Marca [Polish Mothers the Eighth of March] is an action prepared especially for All Women’s Day. It is a highly overdrawn picture of a Polish woman’s life. The action is some kind of a protest against treating others in a stereotypical, schematic and patriarchic way. The majority of the Polish parliament is made of men who decide what and when women can do, when and how they should deliver babies and in what conditions they should bring them up. Poland is the country where the same men create and advertise excellent washing powders, vacuum cleaners and other objects that are assumed to be used by women. I think that against the generally widely declared equality of sexes and duties share, such a thing does not exist at many homes. Women are still being treated as breeding object whose role is to wash, clean and cook. That is why Matki Polki Ósmy Marca [Polish Mothers the Eighth of March] is not funny at all. I would like men to rethink if they want to see a woman presented by me at their homes. Women should answer if they want their life to be like that, if their dream is to become a housewife that is given more and more duties. Moreover, this is even more painful that on a day that is in fact no different than any other days, many men want to “thank” women with a symbolic flower.

SILENCE

„[...] Anna Biernacka, together with the audience, was reading parts of newspaper articles concerning, to put it short, wars and violence among children and young people. The audience was put into silence. After reading the last article the artist [...] started sewing her mouth, legs and arms with a surgical thread, without any mimic. After that she was standing hopeless, silent and helpless in front of the audience. This way she showed us how people behave when they witness someone’s harm and suffering, how difficult it is to say something and offer help. Those who came across performance art for the first time were surprised, some of them were moved and made to think over the essence of hatred, violence and, first of all, the reason of human inactivity and deafness”.

Katarzyna Gembalik
Piąta ściana no. 3(26)
Festival Magazine of Students’
All Polish Theatre Festival KONTESTACJE, Lublin 2006

SHE/HE/THEY

Idea: Dominik Złotkowski
Performed by: Anna Biernacka and Dominik Złotkowski

„People constantly pass by one another. Everyday chase, from morning to evening, all these things that each of us has to do every single day, no matter if we like it or not. Routine and repetitiveness. Even if we are free for a while, detached from the overwhelming everyday life, we cannot find each other. We differ too much. Man-woman. Human being-human being. We are left with an awkward attempt of being together, coming towards the other person, unsatisfied desire to encounter and be encountered. We are left with being “on the road”.

MONUMENT

WATCH ANGRY DOGS!

[...] Fugazi invested in calmness instead of noise. She has chosen suggestive means: a bucket full of animal hearts, flammable paper figures, fire, dogs- all these combined a very intimate statement. Maybe I am indifferent but yesterday's action did not seem to be particularly rebellious and shocking. Though the subject seems to be politically and socially updated, the artist presented the statement full of personal emotions instead of a manifesto. I felt as if I was secretly peering her diary. I have been looking for single words, slogans that could describe the last night performance: sorrow, hopelessness, doubts in a man, the crisis of sacrum that changes into barking of angry and hungry dogs. As it often is the case in performance art, it was easy to pass "Pomnik" [Monument] with indifference, depart from these emotions. However, when we succeeded to find the common plane of feelings, Fugazi's gestures were easily decoded. She invested in easy, transparent symbols. [...]

Anka has not been looking for controversies; she has only wanted to whisper what is important for her- because it seems that one can whisper with the use of raw meat.

http://czestolovechowa.blox.pl/2010/10/UWAGA-ZLE-PSY.html
23 October 2010

MY THINGS...

Takie moje...dwa [Mine...two] received the Second Award in the Fifth Jubilee All Polish Student Theatre Festival- Theatrum Orbis Terrarum Olsztyn 2006

„The performance Takie moje by Anna Biernacka, who for years has been involved in the activity of the Częstochowa Teatr from Poland. Takie moje…”the percept of an animator, a woman and a human being” is the first, very successful attempt to create on her own account. Biernacka asks herself and her audience the question concerning the identity of a woman, who she is for herself and how others see her. She confronts the audience, interacts with the audience, and conducts an intimate dialogue in which the role of a viewer cannot be limited to the one observing the event from the heights of a comfortable chair”.

Paulina Skorupska
Czekając na święto teatru [Waiting for theatre festival]
Scene no. 4(46)2006

„The performance Takie moje…dwa, similarly to its first version, concerns the life of its author as an animator, a woman and a human being. The words are limited to minimum and the form of expression does not resemble a typical performance. They only appear in a part in which Anna treats the audience with the cake that she made on her own and when she feeds the object of her female attention-man- pillow (The pillow man, 2 in 1) with it. However, what has stricken me most is her honesty and exhibitionism on the stage. In the second part Takie moje Anna used body art poetics- bleeding tattoos. On her breasts and abdomen she engraved with the use of a needle the symbols that the surrounding culture feeds itself on: the peace symbol, swastika, six-arm star and the letter “A” in a circle. Written with blood on her body, these symbols have gained new, individual meaning and became essential elements of her presence in the history of this world”.

Mateusz Szkop „Takie moje...dwa”
Częstochowa Club Magazine„42-200” nr 01(20) February 2006

CALLING

PENIS AND ROSE

[…] Anka Biernacka Fugazi with the use of needles, string, roses and apples presented the story of loneliness, relationships with others, strong desire of being accepted. The artist got undressed, had only black pants on her. Fugazi put needles in her naked body. The needles were fastened to a string finished with red roses’ buds. The roses were given to accidental passer-bys, the strings were stretched, creating a net of connections and relations. Then the artist removed needles from her body and put them into apples, set on the floor. She got dressed. A naked body is the biggest gift one can offer to a lover. Fugazi gets undressed in front of accidental people, gives herself as a gift. To prove love she hands in red roses. In fact she just gives buds, instead of stems we have a string, and spikes are the needles that are in her naked body. A bud makes an announcement of a flower in bloom, more beautiful than the bud itself. A spectator gets the power at the moment of accepting the gift. He or she could stand and watch how the relation is developed, string stretched between him or her and the artist. He could also pull the string that would remove the needle with a piece of the artist’s body. No one pulled. Was it tempting? Of course, it was. We are acually cruel. We have pulled a metaphoric string many times. Fugazi’s performance shows the essence of love, devoid of tender words, dates and caress. When we love, we are naked in front of the person we love, we are unarmed, giving him or her the best we have. We get rid of spikes. It is great if the person we love accepts our love and lets the rose bloom. It is worse when he/ she pulls the string. No matter if the person is bisexual, gay, or hetero- everyone needs acceptance. Apples used in the performance, understood symbolically do not have to carry death and provide human relations with poison- they can provide freshness. Freshness that comes from the juices contained in apples. Needles contained the artist’s blood.

Performance review by Kaliny Filip
„IDENTITY DIALOGUES” PHOTOGRAPHS BY Remigijus Venckus
performance by Anka Biernacka Fugazi
Zajezdnia Gallery in Lublin.
http: / /miernikteatru.blogspot.com/2014/01/dialogi-tozsamosci-fotografie-remigijus.html

ORGANIC COMPOUNDS

[…] Honey that she was spreading on her body, wine that she was pouring on herself- they were placed on the altar, became sacralized (for the benefits of the performance). Honey that is used to produce cosmetics, and wine, the source of pleasure, are the symbols of hedonism. Feather mixed with soil (historically with tar) makes the metaphor of infamy: wallowing in it used to be a form of punishment (gentle) e.g. for heretics. The performance seems to be a warning against playing with life. […]

Tadeusz Piersiak
Wieczór performance w Alejach [Performance evening in Aleje]:
"faceBÓG" a sztuka sacrum” [faceGOD and sacrum”]
http://czestochowa.wyborcza.pl/czestochowa/1,35271,14957126,Wieczor_performance_w_Alejach___faceBOG__a_sztuka.html#ixzz3qLUkybgc

M

A monodrama is an almost an hour reflection over the different faces of a woman. A heroine is a young woman who is full of doubts of different kind. First of all, she feels rejected and not loved by her man- a workaholic who devotes, as she bitterly admits, “23 hours for work, one hour for her”. She also complains about the family that is unfriendly and pushes her to have a carer, give birth to children and be someone she does not want to be. An open criticism is also directed at employers who want to make her reeducate several times, know 50 languages and always be an elegant woman- monument, dressed in a grey suit and company smile. She does not want to fit into the scheme and canons that kill the remains of her individuality. She feels she does not belong here and no one understands her. She just wants to be herself. She does not like her own body that loses with the ideals launched on the colour Photoshop covers. She feels ugly but in her naivety she still desires someone to accept her and love her the way she is, without changing her. She feels bad with her nature that makes it difficult to be like others, same type of puppets. She is constantly between madness, euphoria, lack of fulfillment and depression. She wants to dream, feel, be herself, but she does not know how to do it and express it. The performance form can be shocking for some people, can make a nice surprise or not. There is almost no scenography there is only the audience, weak light, lightening the actress and music that can be heard from time to time that builds up the climate. The actress has a very personal contact with spectators, keeps all their attention, however she does not save a spectator. She says things about her life with the speed of light, making the things she says sound like the school poetry (and checking at the same time the knowledge of spectators who do not expect it!), vulgar words, young people’s slang and empty advertising slogans. She has no mercy for businessman living with a “target and work” and for sweet idiot girls who do anything for their men. She does not leave herself alone too („my mind is pissed” she shouts to the audience),she feels sorrow as she cannot be the person others want her to be and, at the same time, she saves her independence. We can see her as a liberated woman who wants to satisfy her needs in an accidental sex, and in the next scene she is on the floor and cries like a little girl who lost her way home. Biernacka show how different a female nature can be, ironically commenting this case as subordinated to the phenomenon „before, after and during”. She also talks about a vital issue of how the role of a woman has changed throughout the last hundred years- she is the mother, wife, employee etc. Sometimes it is hard to play so many roles at the same time and not go crazy. But also how changeable woman’s nature can be. It is worth seeing the Monodrama to feel the shade of uncertainty. Is what I am doing at a certain moment what I really want to do? If not, can I still change my way and start from the beginning?

Natalia Cichocka
http://www.iffestival.com/pl/to-ju-byo/122-monodramqmq-w-cia-relacja.html

Awards
3rd place at the All-Polish Theatre Festival of Small Forms KARBIDKA 2013
individual honor award at 38th Theatre Meetings in Tychy 2011
1st award – 4th Monodrama Festival MotyF in Tychy 2011
honour award at 32nd Theatre Feast – Small Forms Theatre Groups Confrontation
2nd award at the 16th Small Theatre Meetings "Słodkobłękity" in Zgierz
award for an actor play at the 2nd Amateur Theatres Review MIKSTURA Białystok 2010
2nd place at Independent Theatres Festival „Atena” 2010 in Pułtusk
audience award at theatre meetings BEST – 2010 – Będzin
1st place at Theatre Meetings BEST – 2010 – in Będzin
Grand Prix – Young Theatres Meetings 2010 – Warsaw
Grand Prix – the Halick Melpomena International Festival 2009 – Lvov – Ukraine
Woman and life, version 2011” - „M.”

RECYKLING

Theatre: A woman is something or someone? – after the first show

On May 18 in Carpe Diem club there was the premiere of the performance of Częstochowa Theatre Tlen „Recykling” [Recycling].
[...] The performance is clearly divided into two parts, not only with respect to the subject but also the style. It seems to start more interestingly than end, as the first scenes are magical and not connected with a particular space: till the end we do not know if they are happening in the mind of the main character or belong to the external world. It is not that important. It is more important to recognise the main character as a victim, a woman begging for love, dealing with her objectified body, trying to save her emotional and mental dimension. Intimate confessions are followed by an unexpected turn of events, intimate scenery changes into the space of a whorehouse. The main character assumes the role of a madam, starts dictating the rules of the body trade, drives the business that objectifies the physicalness of a woman and reduces her to the role of a product that is displayed, not for sale but for let.

The second part of the performance is more literal, crueler; […] A good choice was to give Anna Biernacka the main role. This character’s domain belongs to long monologues and the actress managed with them well. Besides her acting shows scenic experience, freedom of acting and credibility: we believe both in the power of objection and a “lady’s” pose. “Recycling” is the performance that talks about the body objectivity, the deficit of feelings and primitivism of human relations. It is also the performance that drips with sensuality and sex- female body is processed, presented in the packaging of sexy underwear and seductive accessories.

There are a few good ideas, music and light solutions in the performance. Fortunately, there is not any overwhelming weight of the subject seriousness. Liszewska, though not always, tries to present the high tones in an attractive form, either funny (the so-called laugh through tears) or a bit deceitful. And finally we do not know if the whorehouse is an indicator of the body trade or the metaphor of the modern world.

The Theatre Tlen, „Recykling” (based on theratre texts of Elfride Jelinek „O zwierzętach” [About animals], „Chór sportowy” [Sport choir]).Directed by: Julia Liszewska. Music: Przemek Wosiński. Starring: Anna Fugazi Biernacka, Aleksandra Florczyk, Joanna Kapkowska, Klaudia Kulinicz, Konrad Chęciński and Szymon Motyl as Showman.

Ilona Matuszczak
THEATRE: A woman is something or someone? – after first show
7 dni [7 days]
http://www.7dni.com.pl/Aktualnosci/?id=839&addComment=no

WE HAVE NOT BEEN HERE YET

Screenplay: Ruta Kavalcanti (J.Filipski, A. Biernacka)
Directed : Kurt Manberg (J.Filipski, A.Biernacka )
Occurs: Anna Biernacka

The theme of the performance is: INTERNET
The theme of the performance is: LOVE
The theme of the performance is: LONELINESS
The theme of the performance is: SEX
The theme of the performance is: LIE
The theme of the performance is: SOMETHING ELSE.....

Awards:
award at the 1st Monodrama Festivals in Tychy „MotyF” Tychy 2007
award at Łódź Theatre Meetings 2004
award for the director’s debut and performance at 10th Słodkobłękity Zgierz 2004, and recommendation to Łódź Theatre Meetings
award for screenplay Windowisko Sopot 2004
award at Students’ Theatres Festival Olsztyn 2004
„Brązowa kulisa” at All-Polish Festival of Young People’s Theatre Łomża 2004
award for an idea and realization of the performance at 25th Theatre Feast - Theatre Groups of Small Forms Confrontation Horyniec Zdrój 2004
3rd place at the 7th All-Polish Students’ Theatre Festival to win The Cup of Częstochowa Technical University
1st place at the 16th Theatre Summer in Płośnice
award for the screenplay at Students’ Theatre Festival ATENA Pułtusk 2003
Journalists Award at the 2nd All-Polish Horizontal Festival Chodzież 2003
award at the 10th All-Polish Open Festival of Amateur Theatres ODEON Andrychów 2003

Fireworks (…) An actress of Narybek from Poland Theatre, Anna Biernacka, was awarded for the monodrama We have not been here yet. It is the only performance that comments reality in a wise way. It touches upon two current topics: advertisement that surrounds us everywhere and addictive internet chatting. Biernacka plays the role of a young girl who is in the contact with the audience, in a few-minute cycles she looks into the eyes of the audience. One can get an impression that we are partners in the virtual dialogue of a teenage girl who spends all nights in the virtual world, where twelve year old “Pawełs and Jaceks”, after a few hours of conversation about Lego blocks, offer getting undressed in front of the internet camera ", a little tête-à-tête. A girl chatting with them thinks that she is not a prostitute, though we can see how she dances in the red light. Because she has to earn to get new shoes….A fast and intense performance explodes when the actress puts on a black jacket, an ironed skirt and in a different voice she announces that a few minutes ago we took part in the presentation of the services for Internet users who spent many hours in front of a computer. The whole illusion is arranged, so that we, the potential clients, can buy the pack from the seller. As we do not care about the omnipresent street banners that advertise chickens, tined meat and holiday in Ibiza, we do not want to take the leaflets we are offered and TV spots give us time to go to the kitchen and open a fridge to get beer, advert producers do everything to keep us, encourage and beguile us. In the performance We have not been here yet, directed by Jarosław Filipski, a telecommunication company kept us in suspense for 40 minutes. (…) „Fireworks”

Bartłomiej Miernik
Teatr no 1-3/2005
Review from Łódź Theatre Meetings