Lublin Dance Theatre – IN MY BEGINNING THERE IS MY END 

The Lublin Dance Theatre In my beginning there is my end

Director/ Scenario: Joanna Lewicka 

October 17th (Thursday), 8.00 PM/Stage in The Shed

Cast: Anna Żak, Beata Mysiak, Ryszard Kalinowski and guests 

Multimedia/Stage design: Aleksander Janas

Costumes: Elbruzda (Marta Gozdz) 

Masks: Monika Zadurska-Bielak, Tomasz Bielak 

Chorus/ Composition: Tomasz Krzyzanowski, Voice: Sean Palmer

Lighting: Grzegorz Polak, Aleksander Janas, Miłosz Wójcik

Movement: The team of Lublin Dance Theatre in cooperation with the Director

Production: Anna Kalita, Konrad Kurowski, Ryszard Kalinowski

Financial support: The Centre for Culture in Lublin, Art Spaces

Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future,

And time future contained in time past.

/TS Eliot/ 

What are we made of? From whom do we descend? Who or what will we become in the next few decades? It all seems obvious, but once asked aloud, it’s easy to get lost in the search of answers. We tend to look for them by exploring boundaries and our own limitations. We look for them in the cult of youth and of idealised bodies, pushing the boundaries of virtuosity and physical agility. But what has passed no longer exists, and what will be has not yet come. Everything that really is – is now. Where is the past and the future then? The body and the mind are changing as we face the fear of emptiness, but also the beauty of old age. A beauty that is objectively absent, but that exists within us, in our minds. The past lingers in our memory, and the future – in our anticipation. The performance by the Lublin Dance Theatre takes place in this state between remembering and forgetting, fear and hope. It aspires to be a memory and at the same time a future disappointment or fulfilment, just as in TS Eliot’s Four Quartets. 

This multidimensional performance is also a meeting point for creators representing diverse fields, places, origins and ages. It poses questions about our collective and individual attitudes towards the past and what is yet to come. It is a game of plunging into nostalgia, recalling good and bad old times. It is an expression of fear of old age and death – as much as of the expectation of happiness or of that one artistic moment we have always craved to experience. 

What might have been is an abstraction

Remaining a perpetual possibility

Only in a world of speculation.

What might have been and what has been

Point to one end, which is always present.

/TS Eliot/ 

phot. Maciej Dziaczko and Maciej Rukasz