BONSAI

Marta Kaźmierska, Gazeta Wyborcza – Poznań, 22 Aug 2006

In "Bonsai" Leszek Bzdyl does not really dance. He keeps on struggling – with a shirt, with trousers, with underpants. He struggles with his own body, which is simultaneously a tool and a trap for him. He is clumsy and funny, especially when he tries to be serious. At one moment, he greets us with a comically contorted foot, at another, he shows us his buttocks whose tension brings to mind a monument of an ancient Greek hero. All in all – nothing much to say. The final conclusion seems to be inevitable: he cannot surpass himself therefore he slightly jibes at himself.


Marcin Maćkiewicz, www.poznan.dlastudenta.pl, 30 Aug 2006

The one which first came to our notice was a mini form "Bonsai" where Leszek Bzdyl with movement reduced to a bare minimum was telling us about the abilities of shaping our own body - shaping an idea which in turn shapes the dancer. This simple, ironic and amusing "etude with a pair of jeans" can tell us more about the nature of dance than many a full evening performance. The metaphor of a Bonsai tree being shaped according to the owners will was exemplified by a dancer struggling with his pair of jeans. He tries to give his body a certain shape, strikes unnatural poses, any other minute, he pretends to be disembodied, and looks at himself from a distance, just to check the results. Despite the dancer's precision, his body defies obedience to such practices. Its abilities are kept in the bounds of nature which cannot be crossed. With that Bzdyl somehow shows the two ways of shaping movement. On the one hand, movement shapes body, but on the other hand, it can only be shaped within the abilities of the body.