Paulina Rewucka – tame me, land
My aim is to stay becoming the entanglements of events including current socio-political contexts, studio practice, n ï m company and lake studio as different environments and moving structures.
If we are carrying our archive with the body we can speak about the collection of memories carried within. This memory is not linearly structured. It’s rather as a collage of the events, visuals, smells or touches that re-visits whenever evoked, provoked by current contexts. Therefore, the 1000 days of Russian aggression in Ukraine makes me think about the beginning of the conflict, lack of gasoline to travel across Poland, passing on stories from the border. The “Holocaust” as a word re-appeared in my vocabulary those days through awakening memories from history lessons a long time ago. Memory, even though it relates to the past, is a filter of reality and a chance to notice, therefore change. It is fascinating material to work with. It is broad, adaptable (depending on the will) and carries qualities to transform, supported by imagination.
What I am observing is thinking through dancing (practice-led-research) and experimenting with different conditions for memory (e.g. immediate-memory, short-term, long-term) and movement for their relation. The other time dance comes from absence of thought, when the body is purely immersed in sustaining the movement. Every day I create a score for the performance that does not happen. One day I wrote a self-interview, the other days, a stream of thoughts after physical practice. I speak my notes out loud to hear them, I use the score “dance as listening”. Finally I create a personal music playlist based on a memory-loop which is a state, when one song provokes the next according to the choice of one’s memories. I am noticing my needs and desires by spending time in the studio. Some of them I manage to silence or talk through, the other ones I’m able to pursue and by fulfilling them I can let go. By assisting Naïma Mazic I get reminded about the spectrum of possibilities to work with rhythm and playfulness coming from music arts. I fell in love with the idea, reminding myself about passion for the music that is rare to dance to.
tame me, land : ghosting relationship with dance based on feeling, listening and remembering. what are we with today? learning from the past, experiencing now, mourning no-future. “let’s push more flow. let me let go.”
(this performance is a part of “ghostly matters” practice, a collection of memories as re-imagined realities blended with the current events)
thanks for music: Kae Tempest (quoted in description), Maciek Stępniewski, Hania Rani, Rozalla, Kate Bush, Gost and Vołosi
help, assistance and thanks to: Naïma Mazic, Julia Biłat, Almudena Vernhes, Rémy Gouffault, Nicola Bullock, Monika Błaszczak
video collaborators: Neža Kokajl, Matt Choboter, Daniel Oxenhandler
performance: Paulina Rewucka