choreographed by: Katarzyna Chmielewska
danced by: Leszek Bzdyl
lighting design: Michał Kołodziej
Bonsai is a story of shaping yourself notwithstanding your will.
or perhaps… Bonsai is a story of shaping yourself in harmony with your will.
To make a new shape – to assume a new shape, if only by wire binding (just figurative meaning...). To make a new shape – to assume a new shape, if for a moment only. To have fun and forget.
We complete in deformity
reviews:
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. Marta Kazmierska, Gazeta Wyborcza – Poznan, 22.08.2006
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 shaped according to the owner’s will was exemplified by a dancer struggling with his pair of jeans. He tries to give the 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. Marcin Maćkiewicz, www.poznań.dlastudenta.pl, 30.08.2006
2005 20 Jan - Klub Żak, Gdańsk / 12 May - Klub Żak, Gdańsk / 4 June - Klub Żak, Gdańsk / 9 June – Teatr Narodowy, Warszawa / 24 Aug - Klub Żak, Gdańsk / 28 Nov - Old Brewery, Poznań / 1 Dec - Klub Żak, Gdańsk
2006
22 June – Teatr Kalambur, Wrocław / 1 Aug - Old Brewery, Poznań / 20-21 Aug – Theatre of the Eighth Day, Poznań / 7 Oct - Zebra Theatre - CK, Ełk / 10 Nov - CK, Lublin / 16 Dec - Klub Żak, Gdańsk
2007
15-16 May - Klub Żak, Gdańsk / 16-17 Nov - Off The Beach Theatre, Sopot / 8 Dec - Klub Żak, Gdańsk
2008
12 April – Teatr Narodowy, Warsaw / 15 May - Off The Beach Theatre, Sopot / 16 May - Centralny Basen Artystyczny, Warsaw / 7 Dec - Klub Żak, Gdańsk
2009
23-24 Jan – Teatr Nowy, Łódź / 15 March - TCK, Tarnowskie Góry / 4 Dec - “Impart” Cultural Center, Wrocław
