Ramona Nagabczyńska’s solo takes on the naturalness of the body, referring to Tadeusz Kantor’s concept of ur-matter. Ur-matter is an entity preceding illusion, an autonomous pre-existence of the theatre space. Ur-matter is the key for the choreographer’s exploration of her own body. Nagabczyńska reverses the question of oppression of the body. Instead, she tries to point to the demands of the body, its agency, ability to emancipate itself and establish its own order.
The replacement of what is required of the body by what the body wants moves this question from the plane of significance into the sphere of needs, desires and images. The ur-material energy multiplies itself, filling the space of the stage and the space of the organism, Corporality no longer appears as a seething, repressed and subordinate force, but a form of activity which regulates the rest. pURe is a cycle subjected to re-composition, an attempt to answer the question of the primeval and its possibilities today.
She graduated from the Ballet Secondary School in Warsaw and studied contemporary dance at the Hochschule fur Musik and Performing Arts in Frankfurt and at The Place in London. As a dancer she worked with many artists in Poland and abroad, including The Polish Dance Theatre from Poznań, Warsaw Dance Theatre Turbulences, Marysia Stokłosa, collective Good Grir Killer from Gdansk, Darkin Ensemble (United Kingdom), Tom Dale Company (United Kingdom) and the Codigo Dance Project (Spain). Currently she is working with David Wampach from France and Clod Ensemble, visual theater from London, supported by the famous Sadler’s Wells.
choreography, idea and performance: Ramona Nagabczyńska
music: Max Richter (recomposition of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons)
light: Ramona Nagabczyńska and Maciej Połynko
produced by: Teatr Maat as part of the Maat Festival. Kantor Now!
premiere: 5 December 2015
duration: 30 min
