Suitable for viewers 18 years of age or older, contains scenes of nudity
‘At first, T H E B O R D E R / G R A N I C A was to be a documentary on Antonina Romanova. The war kept Antonina at the front, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t join us on a later iteration of the performance. My subsequent work on THE BORDER took me to a completely new place, to which I invited Olena Matoshniuk, a painter who supports Ukrainian artists living in Poland. All this happened thanks to Jarosław Fret, who, on hearing Antonina’s story, persuaded me to evoke it, to make it present.
T H E B O R D E R / G R A N I C A is about creating a new, intimate language of Those Who Are [Not] Present, a language that is no longer ‘barbed wire’. By saying ‘barbed wire’, I want to evoke the image of a prisoner’s dialogue with the outside world, or of a refugee staying behind that wire. We are surrounded by a choir of voices saying that what we want it humanity rather than barbed wire.
T H E B O R D E R / G R A N I C A balances on the edge between performance, ritual and ceremony. It becomes a ‘rite of passage’ before our eyes. It opens up a new vista where time is just a moving image of eternity.
T H E B O R D E R / G R A N I C A took its final shape in Scotland during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. That Fringe version, featuring
myself and Antonina Romanova, was created in collaboration with Jarosław Fret as part of the WACHOWICZ/FRET Studio.
The project was born out of the desire to give a voice to those whose voice has been suspended.’
[Monika Wachowicz]
T H E B O R D E R / G R A N I C A won the Scotsman’s Fringe First 2024 and was nominated for the Brighton Fringe Excellence Award.
Idea: Monika Wachowicz
Collaborator: Jarosław Fret
Performers: Antonina Romanova, Monika Wachowicz
Text: Antonina Romanova, Monika Wachowicz
The performance incorporates excerpts of a video recording of Antonina Romanova’s actions undertaken as part of the Text project.
Set: Jarosław Fret, Monika Wachowicz
Video editors: Maciej Mądry, Jarosław Siejkowski
Running time: approximately 40 minutes
Production: the Grotowski Institute and Monika Wachowicz Body and Emotion Studio
Duration: approximately 40 minutes
GRANICA received the 2024 main award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, as well as a nomination for the Brighton Fringe Excellence Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2024.
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