Fierce Festival

14 — 18 October

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SCHEDULE:
  • Wheelchair Accessible CC
  • Wheelchair Accessible CC

DURATION:

50 mins

VENUE:

Midland Arts Centre – Foyle Studio
Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham B12 9QH

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Threesome

Wojciech Grudziński

(Warsaw / Amsterdam)

UK Premiere

In Threesome, Wojciech Grudzinski shares the dance space with spectral figures from the past as he grapple with their legacy. In this exercise in phantasmagoric choreography, he goes cruising through the biographies of the legendary dancers Stanisław Szymański, Wojciech Wiesiołłowski, and Gerard Wilk. Brought up in post-war, communist Poland, two of them eventually emigrated, while one chose to stay in his native country.

How have their bodies been remembered? How did these bodies come to recognize their sensibility and express it on stage? How can these marginalized lives be reclaimed and embodied today? How do we construct an untamed, monstrous, illogical bodily archive of queer history without losing any of their uniqueness?

Threesome seeks to dispel the myths and rediscover their individual experience in a world that we were not part of. It is a hazy posthumous ballet, a repressed legacy, a reenactment, an act of somatic plunder and transformation.

FIERCE SAYS

“Dripping in sweat, sex, and memory, Wojciech invites us into the annals of queer Polish history and exhumes these figures with an intensely physical and utterly compelling performance.”

In Threesome, Wojciech Grudzinski shares the dance space with spectral figures from the past as he grapple with their legacy. In this exercise in phantasmagoric choreography, he goes cruising through the biographies of the legendary dancers Stanisław Szymański, Wojciech Wiesiołłowski, and Gerard Wilk. Brought up in post-war, communist Poland, two of them eventually emigrated, while one chose to stay in his native country.

How have their bodies been remembered? How did these bodies come to recognize their sensibility and express it on stage? How can these marginalized lives be reclaimed and embodied today? How do we construct an untamed, monstrous, illogical bodily archive of queer history without losing any of their uniqueness?

Threesome seeks to dispel the myths and rediscover their individual experience in a world that we were not part of. It is a hazy posthumous ballet, a repressed legacy, a reenactment, an act of somatic plunder and transformation.

FIERCE SAYS

“Dripping in sweat, sex, and memory, Wojciech invites us into the annals of queer Polish history and exhumes these figures with an intensely physical and utterly compelling performance.”

artist bio

▶︎

Wojciech Grudziński is a choreographer and dancer. He graduated from the Roman Turczynowicz Ballet School in Warsaw and completed a BA in Contemporary Dance at Codarts Rotterdam. In 2023, he obtained a Master’s degree from DAS Graduate School at the Academy of Theatre and Dance, Amsterdam University of the Arts. In 2024, he was an artist-in-residence at the Cité internationale des arts x CN D in Paris, where he developed Threesome/Trzy. In 2025, he received the Polityka Passport Award in the Stage category. He is an associated artist with Frascati Producties in Amsterdam.

 

Grudziński has received scholarships from Poland’s Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (2017, 2021), the City of Warsaw (2021), and Dutch foundations including Schuurman Schimmel-van Outeren Stichting (2012/2013) and Stichting Bekker-la Bastide-Fonds (2013). In 2018, he won a competition for a study visit to Movement Research at Judson Church in New York, organized in cooperation with the Global Practice Sharing (GPS) programme, Art Stations Foundation and the National Institute of Music and Dance.

 

Grudziński has collaborated with, among others, Dries Verhoeven (The NarcoSexuals, SPRING Performing Arts Festival), Igor Cardellini and Tomas Gonzalez (2100, Palazzo Trevisan degli Ulivi, Venice), Marta Ziółek (Seans z Pamelą, Zachęta – National Gallery of Art, Warsaw), Ula Sickle (Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw), Ben J. Riepe (CREATURE, Goethe-Institut, Kraków), Katarzyna Kalwat (Purification, Łaźnia Nowa Theatre, Kraków) and Hana Umeda (Sada Yakko, Komuna Warszawa Theatre).

CREDITS

▶︎

Concept and Choreography: Wojciech Grudziński
Artistic Collaboration: Igor Cardellini
Dramaturgical Support: Joanna Ostrowska, Klaudia Hartung-Wójciak
Text: Klaudia Hartung-Wójciak
Artistic Consultations: Miguel Angel Melgares
Video: Rafał Dominik
Costumes: Marta Szypulska
Lighting Design: Jacqueline Sobiszewski
Technical Manager: Thibault Villard
Music: Lubomir Grzelak, Wojtek Blecharz
Production: Wojciech Grudziński / Fundacja 910113
Co-production: Belluard Bollwerk, Nowy Teatr
Management, International relations: Alicja Berejowska / Perform for change

 

This performance is made possible with support from Midland Arts Centre, the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, the Polish Cultural Institute, and public funding by Arts Council England, and co-financed by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

 

The performance was created in collaboration with: Cité Internationale des Arts, Frascati, Visegrad Artist Residency Program for Performing Arts, Centre national de la danse – Pantin. The project is co-financed by the City of Warsaw.

VENUE INFO

There is level, gently sloping or permanent ramp access at the entrances to MAC, as well as throughout our building. All floors are serviced by our main lift, located close to our bar and cinema. Accessible unisex toilets are available on every floor. Find out more here.

access

Closed Captions

CONTENT WARNINGS

Nudity Strobe Lighting