SCENES OF VICE, HORROR & ECSTASY/ Magda Tuka & Anita Wach (POL)

WORK-IN-PROGRESS
performance length: 20 min
idea: Magda Tuka
performing: Anita Wach, Magda Tuka
Work-in-progress. A presentation of the performance arising within a two weeks residence at Alfred ve dvoře Theatre, realized thanks to VARP – Visegrad Artists in Residence Program.

Scenes of Vice, Horror & Ecstasy draws dramatic inspiration from the works and persona of Weimar-period dancer (and notorious drug addict) Anita Berber, one of a number of artists in Berlin’s interwar years who „...used scandal, debauchery and nudity to engage their contemporary culture creatively and critically”, viewing nudism as an ideological critique of the modern mechanization of human identity, and placing Berber herself as a symbol of the „New Woman”. Taking her 1922 book Dances of Vice, Horror & Ecstasy, assembled with partner Sebastian Droste, as the starting point, Magda Tuka and Anita Wach are using Berber’s „dance-poetry”, Droste’s manifesto-like writing, and the included photographs and sketches to create, and present online, a series of vignettes.

Magda Tuka
She has been working in theatre for over 17 years, starting from mime courses and later working for 10 years as an actress and workshops leader with Warsaw-based theatre group Studium Teatralne. In 2006, she graduated from the Warsaw Theatre Academy (MA), and the following year received my Actor's Diploma from ZASP.
Since 2008 she's been living and working in London. In 2008/09 toured England with Birmingham-based The Other Way Works production of Black Tonic. From 2009 has been working with Slovenian troupe Via Negativa on various international projects.
In 2011 Magda received a scholarship from the Polish Ministry of Culture to develop an individual artistic project, resulting in the work Cold Feet performed with Anita Wach. Following Warsaw and London previews in 2012 and further development the show was finally, and successfully, premièred as Alive Alive-O! at this year's Mandala Festival in Wroclaw (PL).
Also this year she received an artistic scholarship from the Visegrad Foundation to develop new work on a residency at Stanica Zilina-Zariecie in Slovakia. Fight, Fight – that's all we can do was again realized in collaboration with Anita Wach and premiered at Stanica's S2 venue in June .
Currently Magda was working on Gloria! (par one) a showed on 22nd September 2013 at the Body/Mind Festival in Warsaw.
In 2014 received scholarship from Visegrad Foundation to develop new project under working title Scenes of Vice, Horror & Ecstasy.
In 2013 Magda co-founded art company Ja Ja Ja Ne Ne Ne (www.jajajanenene.com)

www.magdatuka.com

Anita Wach
Dancer, choreographer and performer. Wach was a dancer in one of the first professional contemporary dance companies in Poland, Silesian Dance Theatre (Bytom, 1996-2003). Since 2005 she has worked mainly with Bretoncaffe Theatre (Warsaw) and in collaboration with various artists as an independent performer and dancer. Bretoncaffe group members are concentrated on searching for a new method of body work and creating a new dramaturgy of movement (Dreaming Body project). She has been an artist-in-residence in Pact Zollwerein Choreographic Centre (2005), received artistic scholarships from Pro Helvetia (2003) and the Polish Ministry of Culture (2011). She has taken part in several international projects: incl. the interdisciplinary KonglomeArt (Berlin, 2003) and the improvisation video-dance project Blind Date (Polish-Israeli co-operation, 2008). In 2010 she started a collaboration with Via Negativa (the artistic collective based in Ljubljana, Slovenia) performing in two projects directed by Bojan Jablanovec: Casablanca Therapy (2010) and Shame (2011). Together with Jablanovec she created solo performance Oops as part of Via Negativa’s experimental project „Irresolvable”. Anita is also choreographer of three dance performances: solo performance Inch 1,5 (2006) , improvised solo On/off (2010) and syncretist duet weast.com (2009).
Supported by:
VARP – Visegrad Artists in Residence Program