DEVILS (Diably)

"Women are a mistake of nature... with their excess of moisture and bodily heat that indicates physical and mental deficiency... they are a kind of invalid, misbegotten and failed man... The full realisation of human kind is man”. These words by St Thomas Acquinas could be used as a motto of crusade launched over two millennia by the Catholic Church against women. Agnieszka Błońska and Joanna Wichowska seek out the sources, symptoms and consequences of this continuing offensive, particularly intensified in rent years in Poland. The story of possessed and exorcised nuns serves as a pretext for research into the long history of colonization of female body, sexual repression, stigmatization of difference and imposition of rigid gender roles. In this investigation a woman becomes a representative of all those, who are left behind a superior norm of human kind, which is man – a heterosexual father, thinker, warrior, priest, god; she is an agent of all “misfits” – those expelled from the privileged majority. In this performance the Church Fathers, Mothers Joans and devils living in their bodies and minds will speak. But most importantly, contemporary women and men who willingly or not take part in a supposedly defensive cultural war fought all over Europe and Poland; a war declared by the Church and politicians. The alleged aggressor in here is “gender ideology”, also called “genedrism”. The alleged victim – religious people, defended by far-sighted “shepherds”. The battleground – a family, femininity and masculinity, treated by bishops as given by God and similarly as body (is that so?) non discussable and unchangeable. Which role in this battle is assigned to each and all of us? Which role are we accept, consciously or not? To what extend are we upholding patriarchy ourselves? And finally, does particular female perspective have to indicate exclusion from common “human” experience? The performance is inspired by motifs from Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz’s story „Mother Joan of the Angels”. It was made for the 4th Art and Community Festival Happy City and premiered on the 7th of December in Teatr Powszechny in Warsaw, Poland. The research involved Dr. Anna Szwed from Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Dr. Agnieszka Koscianska from Warsaw University and Marta Abramowicz, writer

Orlando. Biografie (in translation: Orlando. Biographies)

Different though the sexes are, they intermix. In every human being a vacillation from one sex to the other takes place, and often it is only the clothes that keep the male or female likeness, while underneath the sex is the very opposite of what it is above. Virginia Woolf Despite all that, in 2022 politicians are still trying to forcefully remove the people who don’t confirm to the norms: five months before the invasion on Ukraine, Vladimir Putin said that being transgender is “almost a crime against humanity”, in Hungary there is a ban for “homosexual propaganda”, in Poland there are “LGBT free zones”. Can similar attempts succeed? The show that uses the novel Orlando (1928) and a movie based on it (1992) as its base is trying to face the embarrassment, reluctance, and hatred towards being different. In a journey through centuries, lives, and experiences of cisgender, trans-, and non-binary artists invited to join the project, we ask: is being different really as rare as we think it is? And maybe each of us is different in their own way? Isn’t every transformation and transition we go through in life being different? Do you really know who you are? Are binary divisions the answer to today’s threats? And maybe in this difference there is a promise of fun, revolution, and… a new, better order and world? One of the performers, Filipka Rutkowska, reflecting on the work wrote: Orlando is a love of change. Orlando is a value worth taking care of. ‘It’ is Orlando. Orlando is taking on different genders while still being the same person. Orlando is experiencing the mystery of transition – and treating this transition as a source of knowledge. Orlando is thinking about the birth of a new mind by using old thoughts and then reminiscing about the thoughts that are already gone. Orlando is the acceptance of losing a part of yourself and the readiness to get a new one. Orlando is the curiosity of the world. Orlando is a simultaneous loneliness among people and finding understanding amongst them. Orlando is entering a new state of focus, without knowing the laws that rule this state. Orlando is going to the other side of your own reflection. What stays the same in a person after transitioning? Text: Filipka Rutkowsk