Ewa i On / Eve and Him
Iwona Olszowska and Paweł Konior
24 April / 6:00 PM / KCC Studio
Concept and score: Iwona Olszowska, Paweł Konior
Dance improvisation: Paweł Konior, Iwona Olszowska
Music: Marcin Janus
Premiere: 17.06.2017
The cooperation between Paweł Konior and Iwona Olszowska as a duo was initiated thanks to Adam Kamiński’s initiative. He invited them both to participate in the Laboratorium Ruchu (Laboratory of Movement) event in Wrocław on 16 November 2014. It was then that the first open improvisation accompanied by Marcin Janus’ live music, presented on the stage of CIA (Centrum Inicjatyw Artystycznych) in Wrocław, was created. The Open Improvisation performance became part of the Obszar Tańca (Dance Area) programme at the Barakah Theatre and of the Scena dla tańca (Stage for Dance) programme.
With time, the project evolved. The successive duos always referred to the relationship between two people, yet each time, it was a different kind of personality in different circumstances and constellations. The guidelines for the characters and their interactions were executed according to the principles of improvisation, ultimately forming episodes, events, situations, stories, and impressions.
First, there was “Adam i Elf” (“Adam and the Elf”), followed by “Pablo & Iv” and “Ewa i On” (“Ewa and Him”).
“Ewa i On” is a performance of one of a series of structured improvisation duos in contemporary dance. The script forms the thematic structure, while the dancers create as they go, improvising choreographies in real time – the so-called constant composition. The score of the performance determines the activity framework and the dancers create stage events using movement and dance, using presence, entering into relationships. “Ewa i On” is an impression referring to Adam and Eve.
Iwona Olszowska – dancer, choreographer, contemporary dance teacher. As a teacher, she specialises in body awareness, improvisation, contact, and improvisation as performance. She has a Somatic Movement Educator certificate based on the Body-Mind Centering® approach. She created her own dance style, called the “spiral flow dynamic”. Co-founder and artistic director of the EST Experimental Dance Studio (1989), carrying out structured improvisation, lecture-performance, and site-specific projects – pioneering activities in Polish dance at the time of its establishment. She created the “Obszar tańca” (“Dance Area”) series at the BARAKAH Theatre in Kraków. Author of solo performances and group choreographies, e.g. for the Polish Dance Theatre. She has also created stage movement for drama theatres – in a total of about 40 productions. She has conducted coaching sessions concluded with performances, including “Falling After Paxton” in Toruń, Łódź, Białystok, and Wrocław. She has worked on projects with Pracownia Fizyczna, Renata Piotrowska, Marta Pietruszka, Magda Przybysz, Jacek Owczarek, Anna Haracz, Natalia Iwaniec, and internationally with Liz Lerman, Risa Jaroslow, Maida Withers, Pierre Deloche, and Michael Schumacher, She has won awards for her choreographies, for consistently following her own creative path, and for her stage personality, and received scholarships from the Batory Foundation and the ArtsLink programme in New York. For several years now, she has been working with musician Marcin Janus and dancer and performer Paweł Konior, basing her choreographies on the BMC and structured improvisation approach.
Paweł Konior – performer, dancer, and dance instructor. He studied at the Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance and perfected his dancing skills and technique in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Poland with choreographers such as Pedro Goucha, Einat Tuchman, Mor Shani, Rita Vilhena, T.r.a.s.h Company, Ugo Dehaes, Tomasz Wygoda, and Iwona Olszowska. As a performer, Paweł is interested in discovering new areas in dance and an innovative approach to old forms of movement. He perceives dance as a study of human soul. He searches for the individualisation of movement and rhythm, which – flowing out from within the soul – is unique just like fingerprints. The movement to which he feels drawn is organic, based on emotions, it deepens the sense and awareness of the body.
Marcin Janus – sound and multimedia artist and composer of electronic and electroacoustic music based in Krakow. For many years he has been involved with original artistic projects. He is the composer and often performer of music for numerous dance and theatre performances. Working at the intersection of various art forms, he builds complex sound environments. When creating his projects, he aims to bring about immersive performances, imbuing the world and thought with unique sound phenomena and providing a wide range of sense impressions. In his creative process he concentrates on the timbral properties of sound, examining its basic characteristics and often seeking its reflection in movement and images, and gives new meaning to these phenomena by arranging them in musical space. He works in digital media, most often using Ableton Live and Metasynth as well as midi controllers, which provide unique musical possibilities that result in the wide sound palette of his music. In his technology-based work, one can hear the juxtaposition of recordings and organic sounds with synthesized hues of an often dynamic quality. He started out as a musician in experimental groups, and after several years began working as an independent composer. He was the recipient of an Art Stations Foundation grant within the Solo Project program, and a finalist in the composer competition held as part of the John Cage Year in Lublin 2012. He has also gained experience as a course participant and recently as part of the GrupLab Studio of Electroacoustic Music at the Academy of Music in Krakow, where he has taken part in numerous artistic projects. In addition to regular appearances in Poland, he has also performed in London, Lisbon, Turin and Frankfurt.
