Curated Debate: The Artist Is Present - Dramaturgy of the Self
Self-positioning can take many forms: appearing as a narrator or witness, creating an alter ego, exposing the process of research, revealing doubts, failures or ethical dilemmas, or building the performance around the very act of trying to understand its subject. In such works, the artist’s position is not merely personal background. It becomes a structural device that shapes how the material is framed and how the relation between document, fiction and lived experience is negotiated.
How can self-positioning become a dramaturgical strategy rather than simply an autobiographical gesture - and what happens when the artist’s own experience, artistic persona and creative process become part of the form and meaning of the work?
Olga Ciężkowska will moderate the discussion. The guests will be dramaturg Jasna Žmak and director Iga Gańczarczyk.
90 minutes
Olga Ciężkowska is a theatre director and graduate of the AST National Academy of Theatre Arts in Kraków. She has created performances in repertory theatres as well as in collaboration with independent institutions and artistic collectives.
Her works have been presented and awarded at festivals in Poland and abroad, including Generation After. Showcase 8 and 9, Bliscy Nieznajomi. QueerFest, DramaQueer, and the 28th National Competition for the Staging of a Contemporary Polish Play.
She develops projects based on artistic research, focusing on queer herstories and biographies, including Don’t Kiss Me Now at Teatr Współczesny in Szczecin, The Fearless Love of Eve Adams at the National Stary Theatre in Kraków, and Lesbian Sunset and Representation with the Teraz Poliż Artistic Group.
Together with artist Adam Dragun, she works as part of a directing duo, collaborating on projects including The Last Time My Parents Were at Komuna Warszawa at Komuna Warszawa. They are now jointly developing the curatorial project Based on a True Story, which supports performative projects rooted in long-term research and documentary practices.
Her interests include artistic research and ways of producing knowledge at the intersection of art and academia. She is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Gender and Sexuality at the University of Warsaw.
Jasna Žmak works as dramaturg, writer, researcher and counselling therapist. She is associate professor at the dramaturgy department at the Academy of Dramatic Art of the University of Zagreb where she has previously graduated. She holds a PhD from the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities in Zagreb. She is author of several books, film scripts, critical texts and short stories. As dramaturg, she has collaborated on several performance and film projects. As a psychodramatic therapist and sexual therapy trainee, she provides individual and group therapy and organises different psychodramatic workshops. She has organised and/or mentored several workshops about writing, dramaturgy and/or feminism. She is member of SPID (Croatian Screenwriters and Playwrights Guild) and of HKTP-a (Hrvatske komore psihoterapeuta).
Iga Gańczarczyk is a dramaturg, director, and editor of the Theatre Line at Korporacja Ha!art. She studied Theatre Studies at Jagiellonian University and dramaturgy at the Directing Department of the Kraków State Theatre School.
As a dramaturg, she has collaborated with, among others, Krystian Lupa, Paweł Miśkiewicz, Agnieszka Holland, Anna Smolar, Ewelina Marciniak, and Cezary Tomaszewski. As a director, she has created numerous productions in Polish theatres, including Not I by S. Beckett, Winter Tales based on H. C. Andersen, Katastronauts, and The Blacks by J. Genet.
She teaches at the AST National Academy of Theatre Arts in Kraków (formerly PWST), where she served as Vice-Dean of the Directing Department from 2016 to 2021. In 2021, she was nominated for the Polityka Passport Award in the Theatre category. In 2023, she completed the Dok Pro documentary filmmaking course at the Wajda School in Warsaw.
Small hall
English
