‘Following…’ – about the Węgajty Theatre Archive
The idea of creating a virtual, open-access Archive of the Węgajty Theatre was not born out of inspiration for the development of archival research, nor was it born in dialogue with the growing interest in the concept of the archive in the humanities; its source was purely pragmatic. At the moment of formulating the team research project dedicated to the Węgajty Theatre, which, under the name Węgajty Theatre – 35 years of anthropological theatre and socio-cultural exploration, received funding from the National Centre for Science in 2018, it became clear that working on monographs devoted to the Theatre’s activities – both historically and experientially – would involve getting access to various types of archival material. Once found, excavated and processed, the idea was to make them available to others – researchers, audiences and participants of the activities, people working with and neighbouring the group, animators of the theatre, members of the communities to which the group travels, in a word: all people interested in the activities of the Węgajty Theatre.
We have undertaken the creation of a repository designed not only as a place for the accumulation of knowledge about the Węgajty Theatre, but also as an invitation for users to create new narratives. This is possible due to the digital format of the archive. However, before the impressive website was created, most of the work was done in spreadsheets, which were not very friendly from the perspective of humanists. So the origins of the archive were table-based. It was in hundreds of columns and lines, in thousands of cells, that we tediously entered the data that would later become the basis for the content of the digital repository. The subsequent work carried out with the help of the IT specialist was also a huge challenge: importing data into the system, transferring material to the servers and maintaining the designed website. These activities on the borderline between IT and programming sometimes stalled our theatrical research work. Editing and correcting content entered into the system, improving the website's functionality and aesthetics are other aspects of creating a virtual archive. Preparing an English-language version of the repository is a step towards adapting it to the needs of non-Polish-speaking users.
The framework of the archive’s structure was formed on the basis of the categories of textual, iconographic and film materials made available to us by Erdmute and Wacław Sobaszek, which constituted the at-home repository of the Theatre’s co-founders, collected over the years in suitcases and trunks. For the purposes of the archive, this collection was gradually enriched and supplemented by the private collections of the Wegajty Theatre’s collaborators and its recipients (to name but a few: Jan Olędzki, Mariusz Papierski, Piotr Magdziarz, Marijka Łubjancewa, Mikołaj Starzyński, Mateusz Karwat, Vladimir Bocev), as well as photographs and films made by Maciej Janicki as part of his research work (photo documentation of masks, costumes, props, set fragments). It was in the dialogue with people that more and more materials enriching the online database appeared. However, some of the archives were obtained from other sources – for example during library or internet searches, by browsing bibliographic databases, newspaper and magazine archives, and often also the websites and social media of institutions hosting the Węgajty Theatre or festivals that the Theatre participated in. Some sources we have produced ourselves. Among the latter, there is an extensive collection of biographies of people who have been connected with the Węgajty Theatre for years, including both former and current members of the Theatre, its collaborators and participants, befriended hosts from the villages where Węgajty performed their Christmas and Easter carols, as well as researchers and publicists who observed the activities of the group. This collection of people allows us to situate the Węgajty Theatre in a specific environment and show it in a community constellation. The dialogue with the Węgajty community not only made it possible to obtain and create unique materials, but also allowed the collected data to be corrected and the perspective of people connected with the Theatre to be taken into account.
While sorting out source materials as well as information about events at the Węgajty Theatre, we have distinguished five stages in its history. The first two cover the prehistory of Węgajty, that is, the period before the Theatre was founded. The period from 1977 to 1981 covers the activity of the Olsztyn-based Interdisciplinary Creativity and Research Centre Pracownia (‘Workshop’), of which Erdmute and Wacław Sobaszek were a part; the period from 1982 to 22 September 1986 - that of the ‘Pracownia (‘Workshop’) Theatre Activities Centre', founded in the village of Węgajty after the closure of ‘Pracownia’. Although these two formations were independent of the Theatre, their inclusion in the chronology of the archive seems essential in order to understand the process leading to the creation of the Theatre and to note the convergence between their activities and the later activities of Węgajty. In addition, even incomplete archiving of the materials concerning these groups allows for the preservation of scattered information concerning their activities (in the course of our archival work, Maja Dobiasz-Krysiak, PhD from the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń launched the research project Olsztyn Workshop. An interdisciplinary research study, also funded by the National Science Centre https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100089698251628). The third stage of the group’s history, which we have identified, lasted from 23 September 1986 to 1996, the period during which the "Wegajty" Village Theatre existed, until its division into the Węgajty Theatre/Field Project and the Węgajty Theatre Schola (now Węgajty Schola). The next, fourth stage, covers the years 1997-2011, which mark the activities of the Field Project. The last one begins in 2012, when the group stopped using its previous name, becoming simply the Węgajty Theatre, and it continues to this day. Although the structure of the archive forces a linear depiction of the Theatre’s development, it would also be valid to think of its evolution as a sprawling rhizome with intertwined and constantly meandering roots.
We have divided the team's activities into four categories: ‘Performances’, ‘Festivals’, ‘Expeditions’ and ‘Other activities’. In the first category, we have included performances presented by the Węgajty Theatre, trying to indicate not only premieres (which is quite problematic due to the specificity of the Theatre’s work and difficulty in determining what was a work-in-progress show, what was a pre-premiere show, and what was a true premiere), but also subsequent shows of a given performance (the list is still open) both in the Theatre’s seat and in other locations, where possible noting the changing casts during successive shows. The ‘Festivals’ category includes all editions of the Theatre Village organised by the Theatre, as well as all Polish and foreign festivals in which members of the theatre have participated by presenting performances, leading workshops, organising dances or musicals, or speaking at discussions, seminars and conferences. The ‘Expeditions’ section consists of artistic and research expeditions exploring various regions of Poland, Europe and even the world, as well as cyclical carolling expeditions and workshops (Christmas and Easter). In ‘Other activities’, on the other hand, we have included all events that do not fit into any of the previous categories. This includes anniversaries, scientific seminars, concerts, environmental campaigns, workshops, meetings and many other, often interdisciplinary activities. This category also includes guest performances and activities of other groups, taking place in the premises of the Węgajty Theatre or co-organised by the Theatre in other locations. The creation of such a database has made it possible to systematise the activities of the Węgajty Theatre in chronological order, to reconstruct, at least partially – due to constant changes – the group of people involved, and sometimes also the circumstances and assumptions behind the organisation of the events.
We have also managed to catalogue the sources and material remnants of these activities. Among the various texts collected there are numerous articles and press reports: from short notes and announcements of events of the Węgajty Theatre, to reviews of performances, reports and other more extensive discussions of the activities of the group, coming from national and regional newspapers, theatre, cultural and social magazines, festival newspapers and other ephemeral prints, as well as from Internet portals and blogs. The archive also contains numerous scholarly texts, both articles from scholarly periodicals and excerpts from books, as well as theses (Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral theses), all or parts of which were devoted to the Węgajty Theatre. Another category of text materials are interviews: interviews given by people from the Theatre to the press, conversations with guests and collaborators of the theatre from festival newspapers, transcripts of discussion panels or typescripts of unpublished in-depth interviews conducted by us for research purposes. In the archive we have also included personal documents: diaries and memoir-type texts recording impressions of participation in the events of the Węgajty Theatre or concerning people connected to the Theatre, as well as letters – both open ones, published in the press, and private correspondence. Director’s copies are also an important source of knowledge, providing insight into the process of creative work. Other texts, such as poetry and prose writings of people connected with the Węgajty Theatre, manifestos, translations, summaries and any other writings that are difficult to classify, have been placed in a separate category.
In this collection of almost two thousand texts there are studies devoted entirely to Węgajty, and others in which the Theatre or people connected to it appear only occasionally. Such a broad criterion for obtaining and collecting sources in the archive makes it possible to place the group in a variety of contexts, sometimes in comparison with other theatre groups and activities of a similar nature, in connection with various institutions and people, against the background of events in the region and in different, often unexpected constellations. The richness and diversity of this vast collection of text materials is emphasised by the fact that it includes texts written by people associated with the Theatre, professional journalists, researchers but also amateurs. Although most of the articles were written in Polish, you can also find materials in English, German, French, Russian, Belarusian, Lithuanian, Czech, Spanish and even Chinese.
We have also included objects used in performances among the material traces of the activities of the Węgajty Theatre. This category is represented by costumes, masks, props and elements of stage design documented by photographs (mainly by Maciej Janicki). Archival photographs of the Theatre’s activities were helpful in identifying objects that no longer exist. Traces of the Theatre’s activities can also be found in photographs and multimedia, both professional and amateur, not always of good quality, but still an important record of the group's work and unique events related to its functioning. Another category of sources are promotional materials, including posters, leaflets, programmes, tickets and – characteristic of Węgajty – festival notebooks, related to events organised by the Theatre and those in which it participated.
An important fact is that in addition to ‘following the material traces of activities’, we included other ‘ways’, perspectives of looking at the work of the Węgajty Theatre founded on documents produced during the research – biographical notes of the co-creators and collaborators of the group (‘following the people’), maps marking the places of the activities undertaken by the group (‘following the places’), the constructed chronology of events making up the history of the Węgajty Theatre (‘following the activities’). Looking at the Węgajty Theatre through the material remains of theatrical and animation work, people, actions, places, creates a kind of network, the individual elements of which connect with the others in sometimes surprising ways. The multi-component data makes it possible to view phenomena from different perspectives. The structure of the archive conceived in such a way remains in close connection with the type of work carried out in Węgajty – theatrical, animation, social, in which the actions taken result from relations with people and places in a specific natural, geographical and social context.
Including a wide variety of materials in the archive means struggling with the complexities of copyright law and the need to obtain permission to publish texts, photographs and films. We made an effort to reach out to the copyright holders: authors of individual materials, editors of magazines, publishing houses, television stations... These efforts were not always successful – many authors were found to be beyond our reach, some did not agree to have their content included in the archive, others preferred to remain anonymous. Some journals or publishing houses ceased their activities, while several editors required to pay a licence for their material, which for financial reasons was not possible for us. As a result, we had to remove nearly 500 of the previously acquired texts from the archive (including numerous articles from ‘Gazeta Wyborcza’ from its national edition and regional editions, including the particularly important Olsztyn edition, whose journalists, with Tadeusz Szyłłejko at the forefront, accompanied the activities of the Węgajty Theatre for years). In these cases, the archive kept records with bibliographical data of the articles, which are also available in the Department of Theatre Documentation of the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw.
The Węgajty Theatre archive is neither closed nor finished. Because of the still thriving activity of the Theatre, it remains in a constant process and collaborative construction. We are also aware that it is impossible to collect all the information and present it in a complete form. There is certainly a lot of material we have not been able to reach, so the archive – like any other such collection – will be marked by a sense of absence.
As the creators of the virtual archive of the Węgajty Theatre, we have made every effort to diligently collect and process the information we have obtained and, as far as possible, to obtain permissions for the materials we have placed. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all the people who have contributed to its creation. In the event of any corrections or additions, please contact us at archiwumteatruwegajty@gmail.com or magdalena.hasiuk@ispan.pl.
Justyna Biernat, Magdalena Hasiuk, Joanna Kocemba-Żebrowska, Joanna Królikowska, Katarzyna Kułakowska
Compiled by Joanna Królikowska
Translation and proofreading Michalina Stańdo
The text uses excerpts from the article Od walizki do sieci. Wokół archiwum Teatru Węgajty by Justyna Biernat, Magdalena Hasiuk, Joanna Kocemba-Żebrowska and Joanna Królikowska (‘Konteksty. Polska Sztuka Ludowa’ 2022, No. 1-2, pp. 334-339).
THE WĘGAJTY THEATRE ARCHIVE TEAM
Justyna Biernat
Theatrologist, classical philologist, researcher of the history of Tomaszów Jews. Assistant Professor at the Art Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. As part of the grant Węgajty Theatre – 35 years of anthropological theatre and socio-cultural exploration, she undertook research on the significance of the natural and cultural landscape in the activities of the Węgajty Theatre. She pursued part of her PhD on the dramaturgy of lament in ancient Greek tragedies at Oxford University. She is currently researching the history of the Tomaszów Mazowiecki Ghetto. She runs the Spaces of Memory Foundation. Author of books: Sen o teatrze. Listy z tomaszowskiego getta (2018), Black Silhouettes. Guide to the Tomaszów Ghetto (2020), Urban Polyphony (2022). Winner of competitions: POLIN Prize 2020 (honourable mention), KARTA Centre 2019 (finalist), KLIO Prize 2019 (winner in the field of editing for Sen o teatrze).
Photo by Michał Jaźwiecki
Magdalena Hasiuk
Theatrologist, social researcher. Assistant Professor at the Art Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, where she conducts team research dedicated to the Węgajty Theatre as part of the Sonata-Bis grant funded by the National Science Centre (2018-2023). Her research interests focus on the social impact of the art of theatre. Author of the books: „Okrutnie dziwna strona” świata. Wokół teatru więziennego (2015) oraz Teatr Słońca. Od rewolucji na kozłach do odysei uchodźców (2016). Co-editor of the volumes: Kręgi i płomienie. Szkice o teatrze i socjologii (2017), Gangliony pękają mi od niewyrażalnych myśli (2019). Translator of Jacques Lecoq’s Le Corps Poetique (2011). Author of academic articles, critical sketches, interviews and reviews published in collective volumes as well as Polish and foreign periodicals. She collaborates with the Womenstate Collective Association in the framework of the project Centre for Prison Art carried out at the Penitentiary Institution in Krzywaniec (2022-2023).
Photo by Aleksandra Birycka
Joanna Kocemba-Żebrowska
Culture expert and theatrologist, assistant professor at the Education Department of the Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź, scholarship holder of the grant Węgajty Theatre – 35 years of anthropological theatre and socio-cultural exploration, member of Łódź Urban Initiative Association Topografie. In 2022 she defended her doctoral dissertation The Participatory Theatre in Poland. Selected practices at the Institute of Polish Culture of the University of Warsaw. She is a co-editor of the book Spiski życiowe. Dziennik węgajcki 1982-2020 by Wacław Sobaszek and co-author of the book Wielki przemysł, wielka cisza. Łódzkie zakłady przemysłowe 1945-2000.
She worked with the Węgajty Theatre as a workshop participant and volunteer in 2012-2015 and 2017-2018. She was an actress in the performance Fire, Crisis, Central Station (2012) and in the first version of the performance Air E(x)missions (2013).
Photo by Marcin Żebrowski
Joanna Królikowska
Culture expert and theatrologist. Doctoral student at the Doctoral School of Humanities, University of Łódź. Scholarship holder of the grant Węgajty Theatre – 35 years of anthropological theatre and socio-cultural exploration implemented at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences (from February 2021). Winner of the main prize in the competition for the best master's thesis in the academic year 2018/2019 in the field of theatre sciences, performance and spectacle, organised by the Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute for her thesis Rzeczywistość (nie)opisana. Życie teatru na łamach prasy branżowej w latach 1983-1989, subsequently published in book form. Author of scholarly articles and theatre reviews.
Katarzyna Kułakowska
Culture expert, cultural anthropologist and social researcher. Assistant Professor at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences. She focuses on the anthropology of experience and works on expanding Polish theatre studies to include a feminist perspective. Head of the grant HyPaTia. The History of Polish Theatre. A Feminist Research Project. Author of books: Miasto płci (2010) and Błaźnice. Kobiety kontrkultury teatralnej w Polsce (2017). Academic editor of the monographs Teatr w pandemii (2021) and Polifonia. Rzecz o pracy twórczej Teatru Węgajty (2023). Co-author of the book (Nie)zależne grupy teatralne. Studium przypadku (2023).
Photo by Michał Konca
Maciej Janicki
Filmmaker, editor, owner of Filmowanie Kreatywne. Undertakes filmmaking activities within culture. He has cooperated with many artists and cultural institutions, mainly from Warmia and Mazury, in the documentation of performances and theatrical activities. He has been working with the Węgajty Theatre since 2009. He records, archives and shares footage of the group.
Michalina Stańdo
Proofreading and translations.