Włodzimierz Staniewski, Centre for Theatre Practices “Gardzienice” (Poland)
Włodzimierz Staniewski for the program of the International Forum on the problems of theatre education and experiment proposed a series of trainings on acting skill (movement, voice) and on the process of creating a production. In addition, the performance "Metamorphoses" by Apuleius was shown.
Staniewski himself says that he "came out" from Meyerhold, without telling about his participation in the Jerzy Grotowski’s laboratory. However, he combines biomechanics with the methods of the paraphysical theatre. In Gardzienice, a small town near Lublin, in 1977 Staniewski organised the Centre for Theatre Practices. It holds classes-rehearsals on the basis of folklore and ethnic studies: songs and dances become the basis of work with actors. The emphasis is not on national cultures, but on the commonality of all existing and even disappeared cultures.
During its existence, the theatre company has produced performances: "Evening Performance" (1977) after the novel by F. Rabelais "Gargantua and Pantagruel", “Sorcery” (1981) on 2 and 4 parts of Mickiewicz’s "Dziady", "The Life of Archpriest Avvakum" (1983), "Carmina Burana" (1990), "Metamorphoses" (1997) on novel by Apuleius "Golden Ass”, "Elektra" (2004) by Euripides, and some others.
The main element of the theatre researches of the Center in “Metamorphoses” is the process of the actor's comprehension of the plot as part of its inner formation. The actor's task is not to create an image, but to look for a part of existence in the distant epoch of ancient Greece. For Staniewski text carries in itself cultural signs, codes of the diseased culture.
In "Metamorphoses" the basis of acting work became music and singing. All of the songs used in the production are based on the materials of archaeology. The music of the performance is a scientific research, which Staniewski made together with the researchers of ancient culture. In one of the interviews, the director said: "Not people have taught us music, but stones. The revived Stones". But none of the melodies is a reconstruction, it is rather an attempt to comprehend the past through sound. The sound is also the main expressive medium of the Jerzy Grotowski paratheatre. The hymn, which is performed by men behind the dancing maenads, reached us from the early Christianity, but the record of the same hymn was found at excavations of the ancient Greek city and dates back to the 2nd century BC. Two cultures collide in a single space and a genuine conflict emerges from this clash.