Based on poetic fragments by Novalis,
S. Lem, S. Wyspiański, S. Weil, M. Blanchot, and own texts

What has to happen to change a person so much that they take on a new name? How to talk about a vision, which cannot be described even by the one who has had it?

Hymns to the Night is an attempt to answer the question: what happened “on the barren hill” where more than 200 years ago Novalis – the youngest of the founding fathers of Romanticism – had his most important inner experience.

The performance starts from the version of the event given to us by the poet, confronting it with the artists’ points of view, opening new contexts. Each of the five chambers of the Gardzienice Palace, where the performance takes place, is an attempt at a different interpretation of the episode that changed Novalis’ life and opened a new stage in the history of European culture.

In the performance produced by the European Centre for Theatre Practices “Gardzienice” there participate students and graduates of the L. Solski State Higher School of Theatre in Krakow and the Academy for Theatre Practices in Gardzienice.

The premiere of the play took place as part of the symposium “Sentio: Novalis” at EOPT in Gardzienice on 20.09.2015. The play was also presented at the International Festival of Wandering Theatres in Gardzienice and at the Forum of Young Direction.
Premiere: European Centre for Theatre Practices ,,Gardziencie” within the symposium ,,Sentio: Novalis” 2015;    
Dramaturgy: Radosław Stępień;
Set design / projections: Iwona Bandzarewicz;
Music: traditional German, Polish, Ukrainian and Corsican songs,                      
Poster / Photos: Iwona Bandzarewicz,
Directed by: Maciej Gorczynski          
Bogna Paprocka-Podlasiak,
“Post Mortem. Hymns to the Night by Novalis directed by Maciej Gorczyński at the European Centre for Theatre Practices Gardzienice”,
in European Cultural Space (EPQ): Cinema – Theatre – New Media, edited by Michał Jamiołkowski, Nina Oborska, Krzysztof Tkaczyk, Warsaw 2017, pp. 129-161.