Mothers A Song for Wartime

conception and direction Marta Górnicka

##general.period##:: 27 and 28/03/24
##general.room##:: Montjuïc. Sala Fabià Puigserver

Show completed

Timetable

At 19:00

Running time

1 h

Place

Sala Fabià Puigserver

Language

in Polish, Ukrainian and Belarusian over-titled in Catalan and English

Price

€11 – €32

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Description

The Polish director and singer Marta Górnicka presents a choral piece with 21 women from 10 to 71 years old, which are refugee from Mariupol, Kiev, Irpin and Kharkiv. A healing ritual based on a shchedrivka, a traditional Ukrainian and pre-Christian song performed only by women and children.

The show begins with a desire for happiness and rebirth of the world in the form of shchedrivka. In the pre-Christian era they believed in the power of song and were confident that their words and good wishes for someone in particular would come true. Today, these sung wishes are addressed to all and for life. Those who sing them are survivors. They are fleeing from war and persecution, witnesses of violence and bombings. Women from Ukraine and Belarus who now live in Poland and want to stand and speak together on stage. They use the power of their voices to name that for which there can be no words. They do not want to be heard as victims, but as the protagonists of their own stories.

"Our performance is about women and war. About defense mechanisms and responsibility. About our reaction to a war in Europe. About the rituals of wartime violence against women and civilians which are unchanging.”

In this project, hope and love transcend human cruelty. Onstage: 25 Ukrainian, Polish and Belarusian mothers and their children. The voices convey Ukrainian children’s voices full of life, traditional songs, magic spells and striking political statements. They are the refugees from Mariupol, Kiev, Irpin and Kharkiv. Some of them fled the war; others, persecution. They all have a place in the Heart of Mothers, which follows an operatic form that dates back to ritual women’s choruses from the seventh century BC. A chorus is an embodiment of collective, transgenerational wisdom, and it offers us the opportunity to imagine the unimaginable, like a world without war. Similar to the pre-Christian choruses whose main purpose was to care for citizens, individual experiences coexist alongside the collective imagination in these encounters, workshops and laboratories. The goal is to heal through community with a polyphony of voices and critical discourses.

World Theater Day - tickets at 50%!
Art is Peace international message by norwegian playwrighter Jon Fosse

Schedule

CAST

Katerina Aleinikova

Svitlana Berestovska

Sasha Cherkas

Palina Dabravolskaja

Katarzyna Jaźnicka

Ewa Konstanciak

Liza Kozlova

Anastasiia Kulinich

Natalia Mazur

Kamila Michalska

Hanna Mykhailova

Svitlana Onischak

Kateryna Taran

Valeriia Obodianska

Yuliia Ridna

Maria Robaszkiewicz

Polina Shkliar

Aleksandra Sroka

Maria Tabachuk

Bohdana Zazhytska

Elena Zui-Voitekhovskaya

LIBRETTO

Marta Górnicka & Ensemble

MUSIC

Wojciech Frycz, Marta Górnicka, traditional Ukrainian, Belarusian and Polish music, and a quotation from Mykola Leontovych’s Shchedryk

CHOREOGRAPHY

Evelin Facchini

SETTING

Robert Rumas

COSTUMES

Joanna Załęska

LIGHTING

Artur Sienicki

VIDEO AND VIDEO DOCUMENTATION

Michał Rumas and Justyna Orłowska

VIDEO PROJECTIONS

Michał Jankowski

DRAMATURGY ADVISORS

Olga Byrska and Maria Jasińska

VOCAL COACH

Joanna Piech-Sławecka

DIRECTOR ASSISTANT AND STAGE MANAGER

Bazhena Shamovich

CHOREOGRAPHY ASSISTANT

Maria Bijak

MOVEMENT WORKSHOP

Krystyna Lama Szydłowska

LIBRETTO TRANSLATIONS

Olesya Mamchych (Ukrainian), Maria Pushkina (Belarusian), Aleksandra Paszkowska (English) and Olaf Khul (German)

UKRAINIAN ETHNOMUSICOLOGY CONSULTATION

Anna Ohrimchuk

UKRAINIAN CHILDREN'S GAME CONSULTATION

Venera Ibragimova

IN-REHEARSAL INTERPRETER

Marharyta Huretskaya

SUBTITLES

Zofia Szymanowska (English) and Noucinemart (Catalan)

MANAGEMENT

Marta Kuźmiak and Iwa Ostrowska (CHORUS OF WOMEN Foundation) and Magdalena Płyszewska (Teatr Powszechny)

AND THE TEAMS OF

Teatre Lliure

MENTIONS

A reading of the libretto of Marta Górnicka’s play took place at the Avignon Festival on 23 July 2023

World premiere on 29 September 2023, Teatr Powszechny, Warsaw (Poland)

PRODUCTION

CHORUS OF WOMEN Foundation (Warsaw) and Maxim Gorki Theater (Berlin)

IN CO-PRODUCTION WITH

Teatr Powszechny (Warsaw), Festival d’Avignon, Maillon Theatre De Strasbourg Scene europeenne, Spring Performing Arts Festival (Utrecht) and Tangente St. Polten – Festival Fur Gegenwartskultur (Austria)

SUPPORTED BY

Teatr Dramatyczny (Warsaw), Nowy Teatr (Warsaw), Ukrainian Institute For Freedom Foundation (Warsaw) -an independent public non-profit working for migrants from Ukraine, Chechnya, Belarus, Tajikistan who have settled in Warsaw-, “Przystanek Świetlica” -a recreation center for migrant children and adolescents-, The “Sunflower” Solidary Community Center -supporting for the Ukrainian artist community in Warsaw