MAGNOLIA


Joanna Leśnierowska, Didaskalia nr 5, October 2003

Similarly genuine and personal is the performance "Magnolia" - an artistic tandem of Leszek Bzdyl and Katarzyna Chmielewska (founders of Dada von Bzdülöw Theatre). In a sense, it can be seen as a culminating performance. The show is already going on when the audience are taking seats. Before our very eyes both performers are competing with costumes, clothes hangers are piled up with garments, dressing up is being carried on and the loudspeakers echo with "In a moment, performing will be the famous theatre Dada von Bzdülöw" – we're watching the show's backstage, and in this context, the phrase sounds slightly ironic. It's going to echo back in the meantime. "Magnolia" is an idea carried out consistently and with maturity as well as dynamic, charged with emotions, but far from sentimentalism, full-blooded dance. Bzdyl (a mimic, actor, dancer, choreographer, director) and Chmielewska (a graduate of Gdansk Ballet School and PARTS/Brussels) tell their story without excessive acting; they dance side by side, delicately grading emotions which seem to simmer gently underneath their perfectly united bodies (frequently changed costumes also symbolise the pass of time). The dancers enact the story of partnership, passion, but also, or rather first and foremost, rivalry - both gifted with very strong personalities, they fight a duel, serving a twin purpose (famous theatre Dada von Bzdülöw). Over time, they unveil pent up emotions, time after time, they go hand in hand or split apart, pretend for each other, or hide behind another pose, assist in dancing, but trying to keep up individualism and independence; until the climax, when they both naked stand up the wall, so as to give each other soon a deep bow, clad in the same white bathrobes. As if two opponents who end in a tie and accept each other’s equality they thank each other for the fair play (implied meaning - ten years in company).


Natalia Ligarzewska, Gazeta Wyborcza-Gdansk

Two people live side by side. The climate of their lives is rather temperate, rainy and cool; so small wonder the two characters are changing their clothes again and again. In their lives, they change costumes like roles. Two dressing rooms form a stage set. Two lives, two solitudes; and then, out of the sudden, in the middle of winter, they meet halfway through. A couple wrapped up in scarves and woollen hats starts dancing tango. Their dance combines ice-cold precision with fervent passion; woollen hats with dancers’ evening dress. Wide amplitude of temperatures and emotions is heightened by Mikolaj Trzaska's music, which intertwines South African rhythms with jazz motives. On stage, Leszek Bzdyl and Kasia Chmielewska seem to cut space with their razor-sharp dance.


Joanna Targoń, Gazeta Wyborcza-Kraków

Magnolia begins almost imperceptibly. On both sides of stage, there’re two stands with clothes, and in between them, a man and a woman. Dressed in everyday clothes, they’re standing and talking, or standing in silence. "In a moment, you’ll see the well-known… Dada von Bzdülöw Theatre" - we can hear from a megaphone a few times. This melancholic, jazz motif can be heard a few more times; nevertheless, the couple doesn’t feel like getting started with the performance, though of course, it had already begun. They’re changing costumes, looking at each other, then, changing them again and again and again. Their clothes are plain and simple, and so is their movement, though it’s subject to the rule of rhythm. And that long beginning, being created without any hurry and informally, is just superb.