POLISH DANCE THEATRE

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The Polish Dance Theatre, founded in 1973, is a professional, autonomous ensemble that has evolved from the form of a ballet theatre into a contemporary dance theatre genre. It crosses stylistic and genre boundaries by leaning towards interdisciplinarity, searching for new theatrical spaces and basing the process of creation on improvisation. The difference between the concept of the author theatre of the successive directors of the Polish Dance Theatre, namely Conrad Drzewiecki, Ewa Wycichowska and, from 2016, Iwona Pasińska, has made the Polish Dance Theatre maintain institutional continuity and ongoing transformation. Operating the universal language of the body, it invariably disseminates its achievements in Poland and abroad, presenting performances on 5 continents and cooperating with world-class choreographers, such as Anna Sokolov, Birgit Cullberg, Mats Ek, Örjan Andersson, Karine Saporta, Jo Strømgren or Ohad Naharin.

Since Iwona Pasińska was appointed the director, the theatre has staged 14 premiere performances. The theatre has also been to China with the longest ever tour in Asia, covering six projects in excellent theatre centres: Harbin Opera House, Tianjin Opera House and Poly Theatre in Shenzhen. Performances of the Polish Dance Theatre were presented, among others, during the Dance Studio Stage in Warsaw and Ten Days of Dance organized by the Polish National Opera – Polish National Ballet, during the international Malta Festival Poznań 2017, 2018 and 2019, at the Theater im Pumpenhaus in Münster, at the 15th Belgrade Dance Festival, at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London, at the Thalia Hall – The State Philharmonics Sibiu and during the 27th Quinzena de Dança de Almada – the International Dance Festival in Portugal. The theatre has also completed two TV premieres – ”45” choreographed by Jacek Przybyłowicz and „The Harvest” directed by Igor Gorzkowski and choreographed by Iwona Pasińska.

An important part of the Theatre’s activity is the production of short dance films. The films produced by the Polish Dance Theatre “Initiation” and „Bória” received many international awards. In addition to the performative programme, the Polish Dance Theatre proposes to its viewers and creators various forms of meeting and dialogue, e.g. participation in Creative Laboratories, conversations about dance aimed at developing interdisciplinary discourse upon this form of art, as well as a literary and photographic film competition “1 page – 1 view – 180 seconds”. The Polish Dance Theatre also deals with the publishing activity.

In December 2020, the Polish Dance Theatre will move to its own headquarters which will hopefully develop into the centre of dance crossing the borders of disciplines, genres and countries.