Applied Gardzienice

Włodzimierz Staniewski is known for bring to life new artistic phenomena. The fact that a new theater was founded in 1977, which was not called a theater but rather a Center of Applied Theater was one such phenomena - suggesting that the activities of Gardzienice will not be limited to the production of plays. Over the course of the next thirty years, the Center made only six plays, which is probably a world record insofar as the proportion of plays prepared to the time that a theater has existed goes. Another novelty was the discovery of a headquarters for the artists that was far away from big cities and out in the country side, "close to nature," as the founder of Gardzienice wrote in his manifesto. Another novelty was taking theater to the people and out into the world, rather than passively waiting for an audience to show up. The form of Staniewski's plays also turned out to be completely new; rooted in difference geographical and chronological traditions that folk theater had not yet penetrated despite its' long tradition - full of liveliness, multiculturalism, embodiment and music. All of this even needed a new name: ethnooratoriuim.

There is more. When the Gardzienice began there vast ancient journey ten years ago, uncovering new cultural teroritories in Ancient Greece, the plays Metamorphosis and Elektra (pictured) took on the form of theatrical essays, embodying the new experiences with all the lightness, freedom, dialectic and paradoxes inherent in the form: contrasting fragments of lyrics with comedy, but also doing a good job balancing beteen art and academic commentary, between the subjective view of a writer and the original source.

Another discovery by Staniewski was the notion and the externilzation of the relationship between the various plays: he would show them in pairs, in order to give a testimony to the path that was taken to get from one to the next. Thus did "Awwakum" enter into a dialogue of sorts with Carmin Burana, and so did Metamorphisis serve as an opening salvo to be followed by Elektra.

In 1999, Staniewski prepared a new project that lasted many hours, which became known as the Gardzienice Cosmos. The project consisted of three plays presented during one evening (Awwakum, Carmin Buran and Metamorphosis), as well as a gallery/installation which presented the accomplishments of the who group in the form of a multimedia documentary.

Out of the idea of the Gardzienice Kosmos, out of the experiences of having given seminatrs in different part sof the world, out of multi-year work with students in his own Academy of Applied Theater, out of a combination of the temperament o fan artist with the ambition of a reasearcher comes the newest form created by Włodzimierz Staniewski, chich is a cross between a theatrical essay and an academic lecture. This lecture turned theater - as he liked to call it - was presented for the first time in 2006 at the Warsaw University, at the behest of the Institute of Polish Culture.

Staniewski recapitalized the activities of the entire Gardzienice Theater here - in all areas, at the edge of art, anthropology and ecology. He concentrated above all on a contemporary ancient project; he showed its' roots, its' context and its' discoveries. He used words, visuals, music, song, and the bodies of his actors - this is what the unique form of his lecture as theater was all about. The audience and those listening could therefore not only learn about the work of Gardzienice, but also they could experience first hand exactly what they practice, and even take part in a vision of what the essential experience of theater looks like - when the dancing began in the final scene of Metamorphosis, everyone in attendance at the University felt the inspiration of Dionisus. The publication of the text of the lecture can serve as a footnote to the event itself.