Iza Szostak
"Excavatory Ballet"
photo by Zbigniew Żupa / Teatralna Maszyna
idea, choreography, performance: Iza Szostak
choreographic collaboration, performance: Paweł Sakowicz
dramaturgy: Anka Herbut
space: Łukasz Kwietniewski
music: Kuba Słomkowski
lighting: Michał Głaszczka
curator: Anna Królica
production coordinator: Dominik Skrzypkowski
produced by: Centre for the Documentation of the Art of Tadeusz Kantor "Cricoteka" in Kraków
co-produced by: Body/Mind, Burdąg Foundation
partner: Bergerat Monnoyeur
first presented as a work in progress: 1 October 2015, Body/Mind Festival, Powszechny Theatre in Warsaw
premiere: 8 November 2015, Cricoteka in Kraków (Telpod hall, ul. Romanowicza)
duration: 60 minutes
Developed as part of Anna Królica's curatorial project Choreographic Machine.
Excavatory Ballet is a post-humanist landscape referring to the images of the declining world and humans that have taken hold of thoughts, media, and arts. The overheat of technological progress has already brought about the exhaustion of energy and natural resources. New ecosystems and ways to verbalise emotions must be introduced, as the old ones are dysfunctional and lead to increasingly greater separation. In a reality designed along these lines, the movement of a human being coupled with a machine is revised, as the human becomes a hybrid being.
Iza Szostak is a dancer and choreographer. She graduated from the Roman Turczynowicz Ballet School in Warsaw (2003) and the Codarts Rotterdam Dance Academy (2008). She interned in Belgium at Jan Fabre's group Troubleyn. She is the author of such pieces as RE//MIX Merce Cunningham, Body. Child. Object, Europe. Inquiry, Excavatory Ballet. She co-creates the Centre in Motion in Warsaw. Iza Szostak's practice involves systems of communication between the body and the object. She works based on anthropological field research, verifying various strategies of embodiment.
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