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myths about the basic question of life and death. They touch the subconscious layers in a spectator’s mind. Mądzik builds visions of lost feelings on the stage and thus guides us through the forgotten chambers of our mind. Actors are equally important as are all the other contributing factors: lightning, sound, music and colours. The actor is a moving object and a token like any other sign. Mądzik gets close in his conception to the thoughts of that great reformer of the theatre. Gordon Graig, whose ideas ' only a few have been able to utilize to advantage. So far almost all of Madzik’s performances have been carried out on the stage of the “Scena Plastycna KUL” a theatre functioning in connection with Lublin Catholic University. He is also held in high esteem as a stage designer both in Poland and abroad. At this moment he is working on the scenery for Andrzei Wajda’s latest play. Wajda is well known in Finland as an excellent film director. He has prepared work shop-type performances already in a wide variety of places, for example in Portugal. He is currently engaged to teach visual expression in the Art , Academy of West-Berlin. The Chambers of Memories In connections with the Vaasa Puppet Theatre Festival Mądzik directs a work shop, which will prepare a visual happening at the ruins of Vanha Vaasa church. This performance is a continuation of Madzik’s previous work. The framework for the play - the ruins of a church over 500 years old are a part of the scenery of the play. The other components of the performance are lightning, music and events progressing through pictorial stagings. Responsibility for the performance. in addition to Leszek Mądzik, is bom by the musicians, actors and artists chosen by the Sibelius Academy, the Theatre Academy and the University of the Industrial Árts. Mądzik tells us that the basic theme of the performance is concerned with the problem of time. The ruins, the scene of the event, show how time has done it’s work - what it has preserved. what destroyed. Mądzik on the basic theme of performance; - In this play we move through the maze of time where we are surrounded by the past, it’s feelings and events. The performance is the spectators journey through the chambers of memories. - The enigma of time is very important in all my performances. It is fascinating how the past affects a person. Memories are a working and

vital power in people and the play is an attempt to reconstruct these forgotten feelings. The Past is Conversing in Pictures For Leszek Mądzik time has never been a one dimensional concept. He states “the past is not just a narration of what once happened. It can be something completely different and contrary to what we have believed it to be.” He also says: - In this performance my objective has been to create a sacramental time and in so doing try to give the spectator an experience of Time as Space. The audience will be able to enter into the spririt of this concept of time through the settings on the stage. - In my productions these settings which change, repeat themselves and disappear, are conducting a dialogue with each other. The past is conversing. in my plays, through pictures and objects. - The main supporting actor for the performers in this production is Time, represented in a concrete form by the ruins, which serve as the stage. Actors in my productions do not act in the conventional sense, but are parts of the whole concept. They mark the time, the place and the actions with their own signs and gestures. An actor, to me, is a token. 1 ask Mądzik to explain more precisely what he means with his idea the reconstruction of memories in this play. - The rythm of the performance, the sculptural effect, lights and colours all this is the emotionally tuned construction of time. I believe in childhood, when a person does not yet understand the limiting effects of time. I would like to return to the first moments of life when feelings were pure and innocent. That time when a childs sensorial perceptions have not yet become dirty, spoilt and destroyed. The Prisoners of Time Mądzik tells me that, later in life, a person’s ways of sensing changes; they either become blunt and foggy or sharp and bright, but both are important, Time takes us prisoners Mądzik explains. A most essential part in his productions are the props or the visual framework of the play. - To me it is very important, that the staging is realistic and natural, he says. - The objects and materials tell us something of the past. Objects with which we surround ourselves are also a memento of the past. - All material things, therefore, can hold enormous emotional associations. That is why we either keep or

destroy objects which tell us of the past. I would compare my relationship with objects with that of looking at old photographs. When I look at a photograph of somebody who has been very close to me and whom I have lost, all the objects related to that person affect my feelings very strongly. Almost as if this person had returned through these objects. - One can perhaps say that I trust objects more than a person, because the things somebody has used, carry a memory of him undistorted by time. A person can lie, words can lie but things don’t lie. That is why I don’t want to use words in mys productions. I like to organize my plays as if the whole of life existed between the participating objects. When in art an object metamorphoses into a person, that object, to me, is much more real and alive than the person himself. □

Visual Performance Theatre Arbeitsweise. Schwerpunkte, Vorstellungen, Schwingungen, Fragmente... Wir stellen uns dem Publikum als Projektionsfläche für die eigenen Assoziationen, Unsere Arbeit ist als ein vielschichtiger Klangkörper zu verstehen. Wir komponieren, wobei die Klänge Bilder sind, teilweise nur fragmentarisch bleiben und wie eine Art schräge Tonsequenz funktionieren. Wir inszenieren niemanden, sondern schaffen einen Körper, der unsere Reflexion und die unserer Umwelt beinhaltet, darüberhinaus traumhafte, zerrissenen Szenen, die wir als wichtigen Bestandteil der Reflexion über das, was um uns herum passiert, verstehen. Unsere Stücke erzählen von den Spannungen, Dynamiken des Alltags, jedoch nicht ausschließlich aus der visionären Sicht, welche wir als zu oberflächliches Material für unsere Arbeit empfinden, sondern mehr aus der Sichtweise der Seele. Unsere Augen können nur begrenzt wahrnehmen. Wichtigstes Werkzeug ist somit unser intuitives Gespür. Wir möchten ein unsichtbares Skelett sichtbar, fühlbar werden lassen.

So appelieren wir mit unserer Arbeit nicht nur an Augen und Ohren des Zuschauers, sondern an die Sensibilität für dieses unsichtbare Skelett unserer Umwelt, unserer Existenz, welches von jedem einzelnen als eine Art Phänomen wahrgenommen und als gesellschaftlicher Code behandelt wird. Unsere Arbeit wird von den Zuschauern oft als eine Offenlegung des Unbewußten empfunden, wobei Überkreuzungen in der Wahrnehmung bestimmter Sequenzen unter Zuschauern stattfinden, d.h. mehrere Zuschauer ähnliche Wahrnehmungen haben, was auf ein kollektives System für bestimmte Spannungen schließen läßt. Wir versuchen unseren Körper zu sezieren (wie Artaud in dem Essay Gefühlsathletik in Das Theater und sein Double beschreibt) und schließlich unsere Knie zum Sehen oder unsere Zehen zum Schreiben zu bringen, jeden Schritt über den Boden wie einen Schritt in den Boden zu verstehen. Unsere Konditionierungen sind unsere Feinde, die wir kennenlernen wollen, um unsere Sinne zu bewahren. Unsere Arbeit ist inspiriert von Butoh und seinem Umfeld, welches sich Mitte der sechziger Jahre als Rebellionsbewegung gegen die erstarrte Ästhetik des No- und Kabukitheater gebildet hat. Wir haben viel gelernt über Aussagen von Tatsumi Hijikata, Min Tanaka und Kazuo Ohno. die in Tokio Butohtanz lehren. Für die Zukunft planen wir eine Tournee durch Tokio und Umgegend zu starten, in dem Wunsch einen künstlerischen Austausch zu schaffen. Zur Zeit sind wir mit der Ansammlung unseres Materials für eine neue größere Produktion beschäftigt. Unsere Aufführungsorte finden sich in einem bestimmten Stadium unserer Arbeit. Uns widerstrebt es, die uns in Berlin gebotenen Spielstätten als einzige Plätze zu akzeptieren. So ist auch die Suche nach einem uns ansprechenden Platz wichtiger Bestandteil unserer Aktion. Unsere letzte Produktion hieß Morituri le salutant (Die Todgeweihten grüßen Dich), und wurde von 2 Schauspielern, 4 Musikern, 2 Lichtkonzeptern und mehreren Leuten in einer nassen, kalten Katakombe zur KALTEN ZEIT realisiert und dort zweimal aufgeführt.