The Chorus of Women (Chór kobiet) performed in the Theatre Institute in Warsaw by 28 women of different age and background, professionals and amateurs is a project by Marta Górnicka. It was shown in the Institute at Jazdów street in Warsaw. The glass entrance you notice on the way to Centre of Contemporary Art when you take the path behind the Na Rozdrożu café, where the generation of today’s 30-year-olds used to go to for a beer in high school from most distant districts, because there was just few bars in the whole city. When the audience, waiting in a spread line, was let inside to take their seats, they saw the composition of women already present onstage. It was the first accent that appealed to me. Such an unpretentious opening. We all sat down, switched off devices constantly threatening us with accessibility – our mobiles, and the conductor gave the sign to her chorus to begin.
The Chorus of WomenI heard and saw and felt a variety of sound and body constellations. Whispers, shouts, wailing, hoarse and childish voices, high and low pitched tones, slow motion sound even. Citations from TV advertisements, a pie recipe, passages inspired by Simone do Beauvoir, Michel Foucault, Antigone. Shivers went down my spine few times during just an hour. I’m usually wary of gender artworks. In case of The Chorus it wasn’t reductive though, as it quite often is, at least in my perception. It was like diving from a platform – the stage, into the sea – the women world becoming your own regardless of your own gender (I did a small research amongst the male audience afterwards). I hope The Chorus of Women is going to travel around Poland and abroad, because few shows here in Warsaw is simply not enough.
I mentioned diving. It’s summer time, so obviously we think of slimming. I mean swimming. Or do I? Psychoanalysts would have argued surely. The sweat seems to flatten the EEG of our brains. I will come out of the closet (vocabulary deteremined by the Parade) and admit: yes, we go for the slim summer agenda. Fashionable that we are we want to look Twiggy-like, but in Autumn we turn to Rubens aesthetics and upbeat rhythm.
Biweekly#6. Editor: Agnieszka Słodownik. Cover by niczero. Issued 17 July 2010 at 12:15.
