The didactic programme prior to the foundation of the Academy for Theatre Practices:

(…) The city youth needs to have a place that would stimulate their imagination not only with the conventional teaching methods, but also through directly including them in the creative and organic work. Such work needs to be grounded in spiritual values ​​and highest professional standards. A place of this kind should be freed from the urban context, where everything is done hastily and superficially.

It has to give the youth a chance to focus and experience its particular values. It has to become the “new natural environment of art and education”. The environment in which the toil of existence is transformed into a leaven of creation. To stay in such a place is to train imagination. It should build a sense of inner freedom.

This place would be a workshop, as it were, of the intellectual Argonautica. The Home of Theatre Practices and the Home of Musical Practices. Our team and associate professionals from all around the world could serve this mission. (…)

Excerpts from Włodzimierz Staniewski’s memorial to the Minister of Culture and Art, 1

The educational activity of the Centre for Theatre Practices “Gardzienice” began in 1978, and since then it continues to grow both in Poland and abroad.

In 1989 – 1995, the Centre implemented a long term programme of courses dedicated to theatre instructors and cultural animators. It was designed for Polish students, in particular from the Universities of Warsaw and Wrocław. The course participants took part in international seminars, symposia, and internships (in England, Ireland, the United States, Norway, et al.) as well as in artistic excursions (to Gotland in 1992 and Ukraine in 1991 and 1993). Simultaneously, the Centre began to cooperate with theatre and film directors, actors, musicians, voice and movements specialists as well as cultural animators from several countries.

The programme received excellent feedback from Polish theatre circles. To this day, the graduates of the 1989 – 1995 courses continue their creative activity and utilise the experiences they gathered in “Gardzienice”.

Year 1999 saw the foundation of the Academy for Theatre Practices “Gardzienice”, the Centre’s longest didactic programme which continues to the present day. Each new theatre production of the Centre introduces new components to the training and the didactic alphabet.