Practice research workshop “Mapping Bodies, Landscapes and Relations”
Badania poprzez praktykę (practice as research) to prężnie rozwijająca się w sztukach performatywnych metoda badań doświadczalnych, którą w ramach BPRG koordynuje Katarzyna Pastuszak. Podczas Festiwalu Rozproszonego Between.Pomiędzy 2023 przeprowadziła ona wspólnie z Natalią Chylińską trzydniowe warsztaty Mapping Bodies, w których uczestniczyła grupa studentów z Gdańska i Brestu we francuskiej Bretanii, para doktorantów z Rumunii zajmujących się choreografią, a także performer z Brazylii. Warsztaty Mapping Bodies mają charakter work-in-progress i realizowane są przy wsparciu sieci uniwersyteckiej SEA-EU (European University of the Seas).
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Research idea
The practice research workshop entitled Mapping Bodies, Landscapes and Relations took place at the University of Gdańsk from 18 to 20 May 2023 as part of the Between.Pomiędzy Dispersed Festival 2023 and the academic conference The Geography of The Theatre Imagination: British and Irish theatre and drama – contemporary perspectives (UG). The workshop was led by Katarzyna Pastuszak, assisted by Natalia Chylińska (Amareya Theatre), and attended by students from the University of West Brittany in Brest (France), UG students and researchers/practitioners from the Federal University of Goiás – Goiânia (Brazil) and the George Enescu National Academy of Arts in Iaşi (Romania). The event was part of the European University of the Seas (Sea-EU) programme.
Mapping Bodies, Landscapes and Relations workshop focused on exploring creative tools, methods and practices from the field of physical theatre and choreography, developed by Katarzyna Pastuszak in her recent practice research activities and international artistic projects realized in Poland, Japan, and France, connected with the objectives of the Between.Pomiędzy Research Group.
The aim of the workshop was to create an open space for practical research and reflective analysis of the potential that dance/movement practices have in instigating corporeal dialogues between body and the material world (dialogues between bodies and materials, bodies and places, humans and non-humans, etc.) in different contexts. During the workshop, dance/movement practices were used as tools for observing and mapping human-environment relations. The workshop concluded with a performance, which was staged on the last day of the workshop on the stage of the Jerzy Limon Theatre Hall in the Neophilology Building of the University of Gdańsk.
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Further development
Katarzyna Pastuszak plans to further use the Mapping Bodies, Landscapes and Relations workshop model as a processual research tool. In March 2024, she will lead an eight-hour didactic course entitled Mapping Bodies, Landscapes and Relations as part of a Intensive Blended Programme organised by the University of West Brittany in Brest (France) and the UG Department of Performing Arts Research. Meanwhile, a second edition of the Mapping Bodies, Landscapes and Relations workshop is planned for May 2024 as part of the Dispersed Between.Pomiędzy Dispersed Festival 2024.
In November 2023, Alice Veliche and Radu Alexandru (“George Enescu” National Academy of Arts in Iași, Romania) used the body mapping tools developed by Katarzyna Pastuszak in their choreographic workshop at Linotip – Centru Independent Coregrafic in Bucharest.
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Worshop participants
Radu Alexandru (“George Enescu” National University of Arts, Iași, Romania)
Alice Veliche (“George Enescu” National University of Arts, Iași, Romania)
Ronei Vieira (Máskara – the Transdisciplinary Centre for Research in Theatre, Dance and Performance in Goiânia, Brazil)
Elio Słomiński (University of Gdańsk – Theatre Studies)
Ida Bąbelek (University of Gdańsk – Theatre Studies)
Magdalena Zioło (University of Gdańsk – Theatre Studies)
Lucie Le Bourg (Université de Bretagne Occidentale – UBO, Brest, France)
Elise Chartier (Université de Bretagne Occidentale – UBO, Brest, France)
Lucie Havelange (Université de Bretagne Occidentale – UBO, Brest, France)
Jessica Simantov (Université de Bretagne Occidentale – UBO, Brest, France)
Zuzanna Kopeć (University of Gdańsk – Management and Communication in Performing Arts)
Karolina Kuca (University of Gdańsk – Management and Communication in Performing Arts)
Sara Kordowska (University of Gdańsk – Management and Communication in Performing Arts)
Paulina Jakimowicz (University of Gdańsk – Management and Communication in Performing Arts)
Natalia Pionke (University of Gdańsk – Arts Management)
Karolina Wolniak (University of Gdańsk – Arts Management)
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Participant reactions to the workshop
Alice Veliche
dancer, choreographer, dance pedagogue and doctoral student at the George Enescu National Academy of Arts in Iaşi, Romania
The elements that interested me the most were represented by the walk in the woods, the one whose aim was to analyse textures, movements, shapes, and introduce them into the body map. This map made me much more aware of how I perceive myself. The workshop was very useful for me as a dancer because it focused my attention on body details. (...) I am used to choreographic improvisations, they are often part of my creative process, but the improvisations present in this workshop were a little different (...) the exercises we did made me more present and focused on details (...) and the final presentation integrated them all in a natural way. I spoke through the body about myself, about the forms seen in nature, about the presence of others around me, about body signs.
Ronei Vieira
actor and theatre pedagogue, associated with Máskara – the Transdisciplinary Centre for Research in Theatre, Dance and Performance in Goiânia, Brazil
The whole workshop was very important for me as an actor. But I can highlight one thing, the possibility of investigating the body as a dramaturgical tool, something that resonates with the research we do at Máskara: the understanding of the body as a whole, considering life experiences, emotions and self-perception, as well as the reading that others have of each other’s bodies in a state of performance.
Ida Bąbelek
student of the BA Theatre Studies programme at the University of Gdańsk
The most interesting activities in the workshop for me were all the processes that deepened the awareness of my surroundings and of my body in space. I enjoyed the “little” instructions – the water in the body, the air surrounding my movements, changes depending on the environment (forest, beach) – that pushed my brain into action. The workshop encouraged me to undertake further exploration in the realms of movement, presence/attentiveness and creativity, with more emphasis on the process rather than a “perfect end result.”
Elio Słomiński
student of the BA Theatre Studies programme at the University of Gdańsk
In my opinion, all elements of the workshop were so closely linked that they influenced and complemented each other in an integral way. Consequently, for me the “body maps” influenced and directed my subsequent sense of movement, the space of the forest changed my perception of the theatre stage on which we worked, and the texts we wrote resonated in my later improvisations. For me, the opportunity to experience this process together with people from all over the world, but also with different levels of experience and such diverse movement qualities was particularly valuable. The diversity of the group created a unique mosaic of mutual inspiration. It was a novelty for me to discover a kind of multifaceted way of looking at the body – the body as map, the body as movement, the body as landscape, the body as senses, the body as a collective, the body as overflowing water, the body as word, the body as body and much more. The way in which the combination of workshop elements guided body and movement awareness opened up a new sense of freedom for me and marked the beginning of my explorations in working with the body.
(...) combining different kinds of spaces always benefits a project – it creates a network of associations and analogies between spaces, it changes or broadens perspectives, and it is an impetus for actions and concepts that would otherwise not have emerged. In the case of the Mapping bodies… workshop, I found this procedure particularly apt. The space of the forest and the tasks we were given in it provided, from my perspective, an opening, or perhaps a widening of the senses. Unlike the theatre space, the forest is organically filled with unexpected stimuli. When entering the theatre space, one expects uniformity – even rows of seats, a black wooden stage floor, incandescent light, a neutral colour on the walls. In fact, the only spontaneous factor in this environment is the other person. In the space of the forest (although, to some extent, everyone expects forest spaces to look like), everything seems to be subject to chance and dependent on the path we take. Here, every sound, sight, smell or touch can turn out to be unexpected. Comparing the two sites, I would say that the theatre space is, for me, more based on the relationship with another person and with myself, and the space of the forest on the relationship with the environment, primarily in purely sensory terms. When these two layers overlapped in the later process of the workshop and a third layer of associations and references was added, an organic whole emerged, which in itself is a complex map.