Alex Baczyński-Jenkins
| Choreography: | Alex Baczynski-Jenkins, in cooperation with the performers |
| Starring: | Agata Grabowska, Billy Morgan, Dawid Stan, Ewa Dziarnowska, Małga Kubiak and Strike |
| Sound and lighting: | Krzysztof Bagiński |
| Production and tour manager: | Andrea Rodrigo |
| Production: | Aleksandra Knychalska |
| Coordination: | Olga Kozińska and Joanna Tercjak |
| Costume in cooperation with: | Rafał Domagała |
| Photographer: | Dawid Nickel |
| Work carried out in the context of: | the Feedback Residency at the Ujazdowski Castle Contemporary Art Centre in Warsaw, in collaboration with the Music and Dance Institute and the research team of the Cartografías de la Alteridad project. |
“Playing, both in its physical and emotional meaning, is present in all my works. It is manifested in an artistic practice that seeks to amplify the gestures, the situations and the spaces of the queer universe. The kind of look I seek to choreograph is a look of desire, even love, that focuses on the smallest details”.Alex Baczyński-Jenkins
In Untitled Dances, Alex Baczyński-Jenkins shows how his
choreographic practices addresses the politics of desire, the embodiment of
queer vocabularies, relationships and sensuality. His work choreographs the
different ways of being together, manifesting affinities found between the
potentiality of queer utopia, everyday materials, social dances and
fragments of counter-cultural stories.
Untitled Dances
was developed at the Ujazdowski Castle Contemporary Art Centre, an
institution created by Wojciech Krukowski, the director of the Polish group
Academia Ruchu, which since 2020 has been led by a right-wing director. The
performance is a sort of somatic file; Untitled Dances puts
through a queer optic the piece Other Dances (1982), by Akademia
Ruchu (Academy of Movement), which developed its work at the intersection
of gesture, experimental theatre, social choreography and performance, and brings it closer to the Kem collective - of which
the artist is a co-founder - and the activities they carried out during
their one-year residency at Ujazdowski Castle. In his work, the
choreographer often uses social practices and historical references as
methods to bring queer affective relationships to the forefront and create
dialogues and forms of solidarity between different times and spaces.
The golden curtains we touch when entering remind us of those of many queer
venues, including Dragana Bar, a queer bar-club that the Kem collective
organised during its residency at the Ujazdowski Castle and which was often
the backdrop of their performances. Among the performers are Małga Kubiak,
queer film director, feminist and counter-cultural icon; Strike, actor,
close collaborator and performer in Małga's films; Billy Morgan, artist and
poet; Dawid Stan who debuts as a performer in this piece and who
Baczyński-Jenkins met at the Dragana Bar; Agata Grabowska, who repeats her
presentation of a list of queer bars in Warsaw that no longer exist; and
dancer and choreographer Ewa Dziarnowska, whose solo in the piece is
reminiscent of a long, ecstatic last dance, just before the party ends. The
sound is mixed live by Krzysztof Bagiński, also a member of Kem. In this
piece, the soundscape is based on mixes and loops of two songs by the band
Brygada Kryzys.