The End of the Great War

DESCRIPTION OF THE EVENT: 

Dada von Bzdülöw Theatre invites their audience to the battlefield of contemporary world. The previous war was never ended, just like the one that had taken place before. And so the war number 287 will have been started before the one that has been waged presently - number 286 ends. It is inevitable that we might, sooner or later, find ourselves on the frontline again. 

With the presumption of the theatre being the reflection of reality, and with the sense of the mentioned reflection being outdated with time, the founders of Teatr Dada von Bzdülöw (which was established in 1992!) have promised their audience to present a highly distorted, or even lampoonist picture of reality in their „The End of the Great War” play. “The End of the Great War” happened unexpectedly. What happened in the human minds was the sudden and widespread biodegradation of the cells responsible for the wartime bloats and cheerful war-related exaggerations. And from then on the human kind needed to forever rely on themselves. Billions of people ceased to form a group of nationalistic individuals and thus changed into one-dimensional, homogeneous community of uniform beings. 

INFORMATION ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Lesser Bzdyl - a dancer, choreographer, actor, director and teacher. Between the years 1987-1990 cooperating with pantomime theatre Teatr Pantomimy Henryka Tomaszewskiego and also with Teatr Ekspresji run by Wojciech Misiura of Gdańsk. The co-founder and the director of Teatr Dada von Bzdülöw operating since 1993. The director and choreographer of “Factor T” (2008) play which was awarded as one of the best dance performances, as a result of voting on the NowyTaniec.PL dance portal. He cooperates with Bałtycki Uniwersytet Tańca. He is the author of stage movement of numerous drama performances, staged in the following theatres (among others): Rozmaitości, Powszechny, Studio and Ateneum, Teatr im.Heleny Modrzejewskiej in Legnica, Teatr Polski in Bydgoszcz. He frequently cooperates with Piotr Cieplak, Zbigniew Brzoza and Jerzy Jarocki. He conducted workshops home and abroad; took part in numerous international projects, i.e. „The Rape of Europe - Landscape X” (Interkult, Stockholm), “In the body” (Bałtycki Uniwersytet Tańca, Gdańsk), “Drop Dead Gorgeous” (coproduction between Teatr Dada with Vincent Dance Theatre, England).

Katarzyna Chmielewska - a choreographer, dancer, author of the stage movement of numerous performances, the co-founder of Teatr Dada von Bzdülöw. Awarded lifetime and artistic achievement award by the President of the City of Gdańsk and the Marshal of Pomorskie Voivodship. A graduate of the National Ballet School of Gdańsk and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s Performing Arts Research and Training Studios. Along with Magdalena Reiter the co-creator of „Wszystkie a propos”. The author of “Enter” project under the auspices of the international X-group initiative. Teaches dance technique and carries out her own original choreographic routines. In 2008 she became the president of Teatr Dada von Bzdülöw. She cooperated with Teatr Wybrzeże in Gdańsk, Teatr Studio im. S.Witkiewicza in Warsaw, and the director Adam Orzechowski. She has been running „Biblioteka Tańca” dance studio along with other artists since 2012.

Dada von Bzdülöw Theatre - contemporary dance group founded in Gdańsk in 1993, by the choreographer and director Leszek Bzdyl, and the dancer and choreographer Katarzyna Chmielewska, who is a graduate of the Gdańsk ballet school and the contemporary dance school in Brussels. In their MANIFESTO the members of the group say: "Each and every performance of the Dada Theatre, together with a basic desire to be a show from the borderline of lent and carnival, is a result of searching and refreshing the rules of communication with the audience. The authors of the Dada Theatre's performances believe their creations are smarter than they are themselves, just like each emanation of life is wiser than the person describing it. A theatrical play is nothing more than a theatrical play. This means that such a show shouldn’t try to make diagnoses, find solutions or engage in other similar intellectual entertainment activities, which are damaging to theatre. Maybe the once existent purity of form is most important. The Dada von Bzdülöw Theatre makes use of motion, which is in itself a beastly pleasure. The Dada Theatre says the words, and the words are always the names of individual illusions. The Dada Theatre irresponsibly lets you mix all things together in the belief that this irresponsibility is our natural habitat. Finally, the Dada Theatre hopes that these artistic devices won’t be called avant-garde by anybody."
From 1998 to 2001 the Dada Theatre the Dada Thetre co-organised many projects with the Baltic Dance University. In 2000-2007 they worked together with the Żak Club in Gdańsk, later on in season 2008/2009 they co-worked with the Nowy Theatre in Łódź. From 2008 till now on the group has been working in co-operation with the Wybrzeże Theatre from Gdańsk where they staged many premieres, including" "Red Grass", "Le Sacre" and "Transmigrazione di Fermenti d'Amore". The group has also been in close co-operation with the Baltic Culture Centre and the Shakespeare Theatre Foundation in Tri-city, the Old Brewery in Poznań, the Nuova Foundation, Re-visions in Warsaw and the Zamek Cultural Centre in Poznań. Between 1996 and 2001 the group organised Dzień Pięknego Towarzystwa (A Day of Beautiful Society) and in 2002-2007 - the Gdańsk Dance Corporation - a festival of dance theatres and contemporary dance, promoting modern dancers and choreographers based in Tri-city. 
The Dada von Bzdülöw Theatre operates within a space where acting and dance expression meet. The theatre contrasts high culture with kitsch and makes use of trivial everyday elements and the poetics of pure nonsense. The dance group, founded in 1993, uses the plastic qualities of stages to construct the atmospheres of the group’s plays, amongst others. In a single play by the Dada von Bzdülöw Theatre pastiche quotation marks and serious lyrical tones might appear. According to the members of the group the most interesting things in art are created within areas where various forms and styles meet. That is why the theatre’s actors willingly make use of various conventions in their realizations - they refer to circus theatre, fairground theatre and pantomime. Their choreographies are filled with inspirations from literary traditions. The group reinterprets ideas of the European writers and forms it into moves, not focusing on the story itself.

LINKS:

• https://www.facebook.com/DadavonBzdulow/