Listen to the chorus
As it spits sand lingering in the throat
As it takes the floor
As it constructs the Tower of Babel.
Who is the chorus?
Modern drama excluded it, dumped sand on it
and sentenced to silence
Today THE CHORUS OF WOMEN wants to regain, to create voice
CHÓR KOBIET | THE CHORUS OF WOMEN
CONCEPT, LIBRETTO, DIRECTION: Marta Górnicka
THE CHORUS OF WOMEN is a modern form of chorus theatre. The libretto for the performance is a collage of cultural texts: "Antigone", works by Barthes, Foucault, Simone de Beauvoir, colloquial speech, advertising slogans, recipes, film quotes and fairy tales. It resounds with forgotten melodies and TV static.
A modern tragic chorus is composed of women of various professions and various ages. It undermines linguistic clichés and reveals the language in its ideological dimension: it speaks with the words of excluded texts.
The modern drama broke up with the chorus, thus depriving itself of a certain dimension of the tragic. We must restore the chorus to the stage and find new forms of its theatrical presence; we have to restore women to the chorus. THE CHORUS OF WOMEN will shout, whisper and sing. It will treat words as music. It will change language into voice, it will initiate its subversive force.
Marta Górnicka
STAGES OF WORK
The project was initiated on December 1, 2009 by way of an open casting call. The selection process did not take into account the age of the candidates or their experience in the fields of acting or music. 28 women were selected from a group of 130 candidates. THE CHORUS OF WOMEN began work in January 2010 with a movement and voice workshop. That same month, the libretto and score were created for the first project: "THIS IS THE CHORUS SPEAKING: only 6 to 8 hours, only 6 to 8 hours..." (which premiered on June 13, 2010). One year later, on June 27, 2011, the second performance of THE CHORUS OF WOMEN, entitled "MAGNIFICAT", held its premiere.
The chorus experiments and researches the following areas:
- memory: it recalls Polish songs, forgotten drama texts, as well as chorus songs from ancient dramas
- voice: it searches for a chorus voice detached from the language, for example in rhythms, echolalia or in a drone
- gender: tries to regain | create woman's voice in culture
THE CHORUS OF WOMEN | the chorus of overdone sounds, rhythm, the elements and contrasts
THE CHORUS OF WOMEN | a little performative | a little cabaret | a little pop | a little opera
THE CHORUS OF WOMEN project was created in the framework of the programme of the Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute - New Theatre Institution.