Magdalena Hasiuk
Joanna Kocemba-Żebrowska
Shoulder to trunk –
a short history of the Węgajty Theatre or the layered structure of a forest[1]
There was a forest
In the Prussian language, the word ‘Węgajty’ meant ‘oak forest’, ‘oak tree’. In 1982, Erdmute and Wacław Sobaszek settled in the Węgajty village colony in an abandoned Warmian settlement among the fields, on the edge of the forest. For more than forty years, the artists and their collaborators have explored theatre and music surrounded by trees, including a copse growing along the road leading to the theatre hall. Currently, the Sobaszeks’ house and the theatre building are surrounded by thick bushes. The now-grown pine trees grew in the vicinity of the artistic activities. The forest grew near the theatre, the theatre grew into the forest. The process of ‘becoming with the environment’ progressed (Ingold 2002). Shoulder to shoulder, trunk to trunk, shoulder to trunk, in close relation as two inseparable phenomena – associated phenomena (cf. Haraway 2012).
The affinity resulting from the coexistence of theatre and forest can also be found in the history of the group’s activities. ‘Węgajty’ – as a classic example of site-specific theatre, from the very beginning used the properties of the unique socio-biological landscape in their artistic work. The image of a forest can also be used as a metaphor to outline the history of the group. The forest ecosystem consists of several layers – litter, groundcover, undergrowth and tree stand – which provide the conditions necessary for the development of different organisms linked by a network of interdependencies. Although there are forests without undergrowth, the other layers are essential for the forest to maintain its special character and vitality. By analogy, various ‘activity layers’ can be identified in the activities of the Węgajty Theatre.
Using the image of a forest in the work of Wegajty, the equivalent of the forest litter, the layer closest to the roots, can be seen as expeditions, the groundcover – activities with communities, both local and artistic – the undergrowth – which in the case of Wegajty emerged late in the theatre’s development – festivals, and the tree stand – performances. The individual parts would not exist if it were not for the subsoil, which is music and the accompanying dances. The ‘activity layers’ at the Węgajty Theatre have developed, just like in a forest, successively and cyclically, depending on the seasons of the year and the stages of the artists’ lives, and at the same time in rhythms adapted to the specifics of each layer. They influence and illuminate each other, creating a variety of contexts.
If we treat the Węgajty Theatre as an ecosystem resembling a forest, the specificity of its work/life – as in the case of Sobaszek’s actions the opus vivendi and opus operandi are closely linked – consists not only of the sum of actions, ‘dissected’ into successive layers, but also of the relations and dependencies between them. And just as a forest does not consist only of a tree stand, ‘the history of theatre (...) is not reduced to the history of performances’ (Cruciani 2005: 249). It is born out of the wealth of activity occurring in networks of connections, sometimes of disruptions and questioning, at other times of fluctuations, emergence and discovery. In this network-layered, organic constellation we see one of the most important characteristics of this particular holobiont (Brzeziński, Sypniewski 2022: 285), which is the Węgajty Theatre.
We see the forest-theatre as an ecosystem-superorganism composed of numerous organisms and ensembles developing in different layers and the links between them. The purpose of a forest is to be alive, and this means to let live, to grow and mature, to age and rejuvenate, to die and to be reborn, to be transformed by all the organisms that co-create it. The ensembles shaped in Węgajty are an important source of layer-actions, and these in turn influence the groups themselves. The evolutions they undergo, the processes they experience, sometimes the disruptions, can be grasped at the individual and group levels. And it is on the latter that our attention is primarily focused.
The forest can be described in a synchronic and diachronic way, using chronology and putting it in relations similar to syntagmatic relations in language, or rather emphasising the equivalent of paradigmatic relations. However, it is only by using different perspectives that one can get closer to the dynamics of the whole, to look across as in the title of one of the projects carried out in Węgajty.
The history of this theatre can be presented in many ways. However, it would be very difficult to encapsulate the wealth of its activities in an extended study, let alone in a short sketch. Our reflection is close to the insight of anthropologist Robert Pogue Harrison, who, in his introduction to the book Forests. The Shadow of Civilisation wrote: ‘if I have learnt anything in the course of my work, it is that the forest is indescribable’ (2009: 20). The same is true of Węgajty. Referring to the author and relying equally on our recognition as on our intuitions (cf. Harrison 2009: 20), we have chosen several paths – micro-histories running deep into the layers. We begin the journey by showing the evolution of the formulas of ensemble, as the History of Węgajty is the story of a changing community, an artistic tribe – a village composed of nomads.
Evolution of the holobiont
The Interdisciplinary Creativity and Research Centre Pracownia (‘Workshop’) (1977-1981) founded in Olsztyn as part of the ‘Pojezierze’ Social and Cultural Society, active in the city and region as an independent creative collective, despite the realities of communist Poland, was not a direct precursor of the Węgajty Theatre. ‘Pracownia’, co-created by Wacław Sobaszek in collaboration with Erdmute Sobaszek, was not only an inspiration, but also an important point of reference for the future theatre. It is not difficult to identify the ideas and values close to ‘Pracownia’, as well as the projects it developed and the tools it used, to which the Węgajty Theatre refers sometimes explicite and more often implicite. This is why we perceive the history of the Interdisciplinary Creativity and Research Centre Pracownia (‘Workshop’), and later of the Pracownia (‘Workshop’) Theatre Activities Centre, created in Węgajty in 1982 by a team of instructors employed at the Voivodship Culture Centre in Olsztyn, made up of former members and workers of ‘Pracownia’, as one of several sources of the Węgajty Theatre. The Interdisciplinary Creativity and Research Centre ‘Pracownia’ and ‘Pracownia’ Theatre Activities Centre are regarded as the prehistory of the ensemble.
The divergence of the artistic paths of the creators of ‘Pracownia’ Theatre Activities Centre coincided with the establishment of the theatre. It was founded in 1986 by two Polish-German couples: Małgorzata Dżygadło-Niklaus and Wolfgang Niklaus, and Erdmute and Wacław Sobaszek as a theatre studio where music was an important area of artistic exploration. At the time, Wacław Sobaszek worked as a full-time employee at the Voivodship Culture Centre (renamed the Regional Cultural Centre in 1992 and the Centre for Education and Cultural Initiatives in 2002). Years later, the group of its employees expanded to include all the founders of the Węgajty Village Theatre, which was the name the ensemble adopted at the time.
Since regular theatrical work in Węgajty began in early autumn, we a priori adopted the date of the September equinox (inscribing the theatre’s activities in the rhythm of nature and the related rituals of the Polish Year is one of its distinctive features) as the symbolic date of the theatre’s founding. The difficulty we encountered in defining the founding date recurred during our exploration of the group’s history. It concerned not only the dates of creation of some artistic formations operating within the Węgajty Theatre, such as the Other Theatre School, but also the dates of some premieres. Official premieres were often preceded in Węgajty by performances presented many months earlier. It was not uncommon for these to be recognised by the audience, and even by some of the creators, as premieres. Such strategies served to emphasise the processual nature of the work and indicated the successive steps of ‘reaching the performance’. In the case of Węgajty, this path is deliberately left open. When characterising it, one can use the term of intransitive production by Tim Ingold, who defined it ‘as a process practically equivalent to life, an intransitive endeavour based on creativity and endless activities undertaken without the assumption that a given object is the ultimate goal. According to Ingold, it should be combined with verbs such as: ‘to hope, ‘to grow’, ‘to dwell’, instead of with the classically ascribed to it: ‘to plan’, ‘to do’, ‘to build’ (Ingold 2011: 6) (Konczal 2017: 200).
In 1990, the Węgajty Association (the current name), which exists to this day, was established with the aim of supporting the activities of the theatre and then also of the Węgajty Schola (the current name), and since 2011 it has been providing funding for both groups. Schola, founded by Małgorzata Dżygadło-Niklaus and Wolfgang Niklaus in 1994 as part of the Węgajty Village Theatre (hereafter TWW), initially as Schola of the Węgajty Village Theatre, involved some of TWW's actors and a number of collaborators from outside the group to research and stage liturgical dramas. Concurrently, a new play (The Canterbury Tales) was being prepared at Węgajty at the time, plays from the repertory were being presented, expeditions and international interdisciplinary seminars were organised. Some actors actually worked in two groups. The dynamic development of activities in the area of liturgical drama led to the division of the Węgajty Village Theatre in 1996 into the Węgajty Theatre/Field Project led by the Sobaszeks and Schola led by the Niklauses, working fully independently within the same association.
In the same year, Wacław Sobaszek initiated an educational project as one of the leading directions of the theatre's work. The aim of the project was to create conditions for the discovery of old ritual traditions in order to help young people encounter lost values and important threads of old culture (cf. Matulewicz 1996), above all folk culture (the equivalent of indigenous culture). At that time, a musical ensemble, Kapela Terenowa, was also established at the theatre.
In the second half of the 1990s the focus at the Węgajty Theatre/Field Project gradually shifted from theatrical studio research to formative work. The culmination of this change was the creation of the Other Theatre School in 2000 – an original method of training performers. To this day, the work within IST consists of educational activities conducted in the form of weekly workshops. They take place in a yearly cycle, during assemblies inscribed in the rituals of the calendar year from the beginning to the end of winter – Christmas carolling, Easter carolling and Shrovetide. During the workshops, the study of traditional performative structures related to rituals and songs is combined with work on individual dramaturgical material, selected and created by the adepts, and masked actions. The workshops are aimed both at theatrical ‘neophytes’, cultural animators and theatre educators, as well as at artists with more experience. Home performances, traditional ritual activities and original scenes presented during tours are created in this way. 2010 brought an unexpected change. From the scenes improvised by the adepts – irrespective of the intentions of the actors and director Wacław Sobaszek – the first performance of IST Water 2030 emerged. Thus, the fourth link in the training cycle – the summer workshop – was created, culminating in the harvest season. Since then, the IST formation year concludes each time (except for the first year of covid pandemic 19 – 2020) with the presentation of a new performance during the Theatre Village festival.
Since 1992 the Węgajty Village Theatre, and later the Węgajty Theatre/Field Project, has collaborated with the Social Welfare Home in Jonkowo, organising dances and visiting the residents with carol singing and Shrovetide. The cooperation was of a pioneering nature. At the time, theatres in Poland rarely undertook artistic activities with communities of people at risk of social exclusion. The work of Węgajty at the Social Welfare Home evolved, the need for closer, individual relationships with the residents grew. The organised art workshops helped to deepen that need. A breakthrough in cooperation came in 2009. The Sobaszeks, together with a group of residents and IST adepts, created the inclusive Haz Beszkwej Theatre, which has continued to operate to this day, since 2014 as the Needed Theater. Its creation has greatly enriched and intensified the activities of the groups that can be described as the Węgajty Theatres.
It was not long before the Węgajty Theatre/Field Project and Schola groups faced a serious challenge. At the end of 2011, the Niklauses and the Sobaszeks were dismissed from their jobs at the Center for Education and Cultural Initiatives in Olsztyn. The theatre began to operate as a non-governmental organisation, which meant that it had to carry out administrative activities on its own, including raising funds, while continuing its artistic work. The only regular subsidy coming from the Theatre Creativity Activation Fund, due to the small amount of funds, by no means ensured the group’s stability. The fundamental change in the status of the theatre, which from a group institutionally supported by the Marshal’s Office of the Warmińsko-Mazurskie Voivodeship became a non-governmental organisation on the verge of survival, was reflected in a change of name. Since 2012, the group has been operating as the Węgajty Theatre.
Organisms in networks
Transformations of organisational formulas have influenced the nature of the group and the way it works. The history of the theatre can be told through the stories of its creators and collaborators, as well as of the neighbours and hosts hosting the group during its expeditions.
A relatively stable group worked at the Węgajty Village Theatre. The four founders were soon joined by Katarzyna Krupka from the El Sur group and Witold Broda. The work of the six-person team culminated in the production The Inn Towards Eternal Peace (1992). Krupka and Broda left Węgajty shortly after the premiere. For a short time, the first trainees worked with the group: Ewa Wronowska (now Wasilewska), Anna Martyniak and Mariusz ‘Pier’ Papierski – engaged primarily in musical work. In 1991, Serhij Petryczenko and Marijka Łubjancewa (Nela Brzezińska) arrived in Warmia from Kiev. They were soon joined by Monika Paśnik (now Paśnik-Petryczenko) from Kraków, and then also: Joanna Wichowska, Zofia (then Katarzyna) Bartoszewicz and Grzegorz Podbiegłowski. Together, as a group of so-called ‘youngsters’, they prepared the premiere of The Canterbury Tales (1996) with the Sobaszeks and Niklauses. Wichowska, Bartoszewicz and Podbiegłowski left the theatre in the same year (1996).
After the group split into theatre and schola, only Łubjancewa stayed for good in the Węgajty Theatre/Field Project, apart from the Sobaszeks. For a short time the work in Węgajty was supported, mainly in logistical terms, by photographer Jan Olędzki. Meanwhile, in 2000-2001, Trevor Hill, a Scottish puppeteer, musician and anthropologist met in Macedonia (in 1996), joined the acting troupe. During this period, a team of regular collaborators, taking part in expeditions and workshops, was also formed. It included Mariusz Gniadek, Sławomir Gostański, Zuzanna Krasoczko (Saba Litwińska), Dariusz 'Ptasiek' Matusiak, Lidia Pajda, Joanna Pawelczyk, Katarzyna Regulska, Anna Welter (now Gniadek), Joanna Zbiegień, Anna Zdziarska. At this stage of work it is easier to speak of the Węgajty Theatre as an artistic and social phenomenon, a certain constellation of people rather than a relatively fixed theatre group. This rotation and variability of the participants involved in the work characterises the Węgajty Theatre to this day.
The establishment of the Other Theatre School (hereafter IST), as well as the establishment of permanent cooperation with the University of Warsaw (Institute of Polish Culture, specialisation in Cultural Animation) resulted in groups of students, known as trainees, coming to Węgajty. This is how, at the beginning of the new millennium, Daniel Brzeziński, Anna Emanuela Rakoczy and Justyna Wielgus found their way to Węgajty and became involved in the work of the group. At that time, Monika Blige and Natalia Mączyńska arrived from Poznań. Then the group of participants in the expeditions and performers of the open-air performances – Missa Pagana and The Ghostly Shroud – was relatively stable. Out of this emerged a theatre group of several people - in the formula of a student theatre, engaged in intensive work on performances (an unrealised project based on Bulgakov and Sonland). Most of its creators regularly came to Warmia for several-day work sessions. In 2005, Piotr Rogaliński, a musician and sculptor who came to Węgajty back in the 1990s in connection with the seminars organised, began his theatrical and musical collaboration with the group.
In the second half of the first decade of the new millennium, Erdmute Sobaszek initiated theatre education activities in Warmia, which were pioneering on a national scale. Aleksandra ‘Nimue’ Kosakowska, Emilia Hagelganz and Barbara Szpunier played an important role in these activities. They were followed by Barbara Grzybowska. All the artists linked these works to the activities of the IST, and Hagelganz, Szpunier and Grzybowska additionally also to their work in the Haz Beszkwej Theatre.
The creation of performances at the Other Theatre School (since 2010) and their staging has strengthened the stability of the groups. The need to work on performances and the opportunity to present them contributed to the integration of the adepts from the different years. Some of them took part in multiple training cycles and performed in several plays. The number of people who have participated in the IST activities today reaches several hundred. Among those most involved in the formation’s activities in artistic terms are: Izabella Alwingier, Paulina Andruczyk, Moti Ashkenazi, Zofia Bartoszewicz, Roman Černik, Magdalena Drozdowicz, Izabela Giczewska, Barbara Grzybowska, Ewa Kurzawa, Maria Legeżyńska, Pamela Leończyk, Bogumiła Majczyno, Barbara Michera, Eliza Paś, Karolina Placha (now Fendrychova), Iwona Prusko, Tomasz Puchalski, Martin Rosi, Wiktoria Rutkowska, Sebastian Świąder, David Zelinka, Paulina ‘Miu’ Zielińska (now Kühling), Agata Ziółkowska. Most of them, in line with the idea of the work carried out in Węgajty, combined artistic activities with organisational tasks, work involving animation and theatre education, as well as documentary and promotional activities.
The most stable composition has been that of the Needed Theatre (formerly the Haz Beszkwej Theatre). Its core are, or were, artists living in the Social Welfare Home in Jonkowo: Irena Anacka, Halina Burzyńska, Jan Jendrycki, Henryk Kitkowski, Albin Krajewski, Zygmunt Markowski, Krystyna Polańczyk and Mariusz Szczepanek, as well as Joanna Drzewiecka-Kozielska from Olsztyn. The neighbourly coexistence of the theatre and the Social Welfare Home as well as the long-standing involvement of a fixed group of people in theatrical and, more broadly, artistic work allows us to see both institutions as associated phenomena (cf. Haraway 2012). The activities of the Needed Theatre and the permanent artistic presence at the Social Welfare Home in Jonkowo constitute an important area of activity for the Węgajty Theatre.
The history of the Węgajty Theatre is characterised by a change in the idea of teamwork. In place of one cohesive team (theatre studio) an ‘ephemeral teamwork’ was born, the Węgajty theatres were created (IST, Needed Theatre, Kapela Terenowa as well as the advisory and organisational teams supporting them: The Flying Collective of the Theatre Village, the ‘festival team’, the Theatre Village volunteers and the Convivo Cooperative created at the theatre). Separate and defined in terms of the tasks undertaken and also open, they allow individuals to move between teams and participate in several of them.
Forest litter or expeditions
Since the group’s inception, to this day, one of its most important activities has been expeditions. In fact, the genesis of the theatre is closely linked to them. It was during an expedition to Kurpie (10-15 July 1986) that its participants, the Sobaszeks and the Niklauses, made the decision to create the Wegajty Village Theatre, which they sealed by shaking hands.
In the second half of the 1980s, artists went on expeditions in order to experience the folk culture present in rural communities. They were looking for inspiration for their activities and for answers to their ‘questions about the relationship between theatrical creation and traditional culture’ (Sobaszek 2007: 9). They travelled through the villages of the Łomża, Przemyśl and Nowy Sącz voivodeships, they travelled around Olsztyn and the Hutsul region. These expeditions were called by Tadeusz Kornaś in 1989 ‘a combination of ethnography and artistic activities’ (1989: 20), and Joanna Pawelczyk wrote about ‘ethno-artistic’ expeditions (Pawelczyk 2003: 44).
The nature of the Węgajty Village Theatre’s expeditions began to change pretty quickly. The first breakthrough came as early as the end of the 1980s. In 1988, the members of the Węgajty Village Theatre embarked on their first carolling expedition (Christmas Carolling according to the Julian calendar) to a village in the Low Beskids. Two years later, in the village of Dziadówek, they discovered the Alleluia ritual, practised until recently in the villages of the Suwałki region. From 1990, they began practising Easter Carolling. In both cases, the expeditions took on a theatrical character. The artists from the Węgajty Village Theatre did not grow up singing carols, but they played the roles of carol singers. They presented a carol singing performance, to which they invited their hosts – inhabitants of villages in the Beskid Niski and Suwałki regions, but also from the Sejny and Kielce regions.
Since the mid-1990s, the culmination of the Easter Carolling in Dziadówek has been a short theatrical show. It was then that Antoni Jankowski – a resident of the village – demolished one of the walls inside the house, creating a suitably large space for the performances. Many residents of Dziadówek participated in them.
Around the same time (from about 1996), the artists began to explore the ritual of Shrovetide. In 1999 the Węgajty Theatre began working on preparing and presenting Shrovetide performances of a syncretic nature – combining various traditions, folk motifs and improvisations by the actors. From the beginning, the performers have been using masks created every year. The original mask workshop was initially developed by Marijka Łubjancewa (Nela Brzezińska). Trevor Hill then taught the group to create plaster masks inspired by dell’arte comedy. This way of working was later developed by Erdmute Sobaszek.
In addition to winter (Christmas) and spring (Easter) carolling, Shrovetide became the third festive season – included in the calendar of Polish ritual year (the inspiration came from Mieczysław Limanowski’s recognitions) – which brought the Węgajty Theatre on expeditions. With their Shrovetide performance, the artists visited special types of ‘collective houses’: social welfare homes, psychiatric hospitals, shelters for the homeless, prisons, refugee centres, ghettos, but also Warmian fire stations and village community rooms.
Since 2000, the workshops preparing for the expeditions and a series of three of them have both made up the IST programme. With its inception, the nature of the expeditions has changed again. This was influenced by the participation of young adepts, most of whom live in the city and have no contact with the countryside, as well as by the growing interest of the Węgajty Theatre creators in adapting tradition (Bartnik 2006: 60). Over the years, both the expeditions and the presentations crowning them (since 2009 the Christmas Carolling has been concluded with the presentation of the New Year’s Nativity Scene) have started to turn more into transnational and transcultural performances. When composing them, their creators draw freely on elements of tradition from different cultures.
In contrast, separate, non-cyclical expeditions include trips abroad to: Ukraine, Macedonia, Belarus, Albania and Taiwan. The expedition to the Ukrainian village of Bystrytsia (January 1991), Stanisław Vincenz’s place of residence, was of an artistic and ethnographic nature. At that time, the Węgajty Village Theatre creators became acquainted with the local Christmas carolling custom, still alive in that area, and not only listened to songs performed by Hutsul carol singers, but also played traditional Hutsul music from pre-war ethnographic records. Two traditions –living and past – could meet.
Similar was the nature of an expedition to the Macedonian village of Vevchani (January 1996), during which the Węgajty Theatre creators became acquainted with the elements of the carnival celebrated on the occasion of the New Year according to the Julian calendar (at that time, they studied the secrets of Shrovetide themselves). During two expeditions to Belarus, the group took part in a spring carolling (1997) and a winter carolling (1998), learning about local customs and songs.
The expedition to Albania, Caravan of the South, through Hungary and Montenegro, took place in August and September 2011 as part of the Across project. The Sobaszeks and a group of IST adepts set off on the expedition from Poland. The stay in Albania was arranged by Justyna Wielgus and Ilir Dragovoja. The expedition was a series of events, during which the Węgajty Theatre group, travelling through villages, towns and cities, showed performances and their fragments, organised performative activities, workshops and rehearsals. It sought to interact with local communities initiating barter.
In February 2016, Erdmute and Wacław Sobaszek flew to Taiwan at the invitation of Puppet&Its Double in Lize. As part of the expedition organised by Wei Yun Lin-Górecka and Paweł Górecki, the creators of the Węgajty Theatre conducted a Shrovetide workshop in Lize, and presented the results of this work (a short presentation of the performance). There was also a conference at Taipei University devoted to the activities of Węgajty – Sources and Future. As can be seen, the nature of the expeditions abroad was largely determined by the period in which they took place.
Undergrowth or activities with communities and festivals
Wacław Sobaszek in his diary, referring to his experience of reading the diaries of Brother Roger Schütz, the founder of the Taizé community, wrote in 1982 about the vision of ‘a meeting of people of forty-two nations in a place which twenty years earlier had only been a quiet village’ (Sobaszek 2020: 21). He expressed his desire to make the Węgajty centre a place of meeting and exchange of cultural and artistic experiences. The history of the Węgajty Theatre shows that two decades did not have to pass for the meadow in front of the theatre to become filled with people of ‘forty-two nations’ – although this is hyperbole. It happened much sooner.
Since 1989 the Węgajty Village Theatre has organised interdisciplinary cultural events called seminars. This was one of the most important forms of its activity, consuming a large part of the group’s work. The seminars were continued by the Węgajty Theatre/Field Project, although their character had then changed and their momentum decreased. The most important seminars and their series include: 'Symbolic Power of Folklore' (1989), 'Theatre and Ecology' (1990), 'Closer Homelands' (1991-1993), 'Paths of Tradition' (1994), 'Towards a Living Tradition' (1995-1996), 'Rapsoidein - Sewing Songs' (1 and 2) (1997) and 'On the Borderline of the Worlds' (1 and 2) (1998).
During the period of the Węgajty Village Theatre, the seminars were usually held several times a year, lasted about three days and had an intense programme. They featured performances by the Węgajty Village Theatre and invited guests, discussions, film screenings, book presentations, exhibition openings, concerts and dances. The artistic component was combined with a scientific one – the seminars included meetings with researchers and scholars of theatre and traditional cultures, some of whom gave lectures and commented on documentaries. The seminars were interdisciplinary, artistic and research-based. Because of their subject matter, they were called not only theatre seminars, but also theatrical or ethnographic seminars. They were partly funded by the Ministry of Culture and Art (Soduła 1996: 42). Their international character resulted from the interests of the Węgajty Village Theatre's creators, related to traditional culture and the concept of ‘closer homelands’, inspired by the work of Stanisław Vincenz and Czesław Miłosz. Among the invited guests were people and groups from various regions of Poland (Żywiec region, Suwałki region, Radom region), as well as from distant regions, primarily from Central (Germany, Macedonia, Hungary, Czech Republic) and Eastern European countries (Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus), as well as from the United Kingdom. Regular visits to Węgajty by specialists in various fields not only provided the group with important inspirations for development and significantly widened the audience of its performances, but also allowed it to build a community of people – creators, audiences and researchers, interested in the relationship between art and tradition, as well as between art and ecology.
The Węgajty Theatre/Field Project not only continued its work on seminars, but also organised several events commemorating the work of the poet associated with Warmia (‘Robak’ house in Pupki), Andrzej Sulima-Suryn. His poetry and ideas in the late 1990s began to inspire the group from Węgajty. During the first of the events, called Surynada (3-4 September 1999), Wacław Sobaszek, wearing clothes belonging to the poet, walked in front of a procession, through the meadows and forests of Warmia, from the seat of the Węgajty Theatre to the place where the Stone – a monument to Andrzej Sulima-Suryn – was unveiled.
At that time the group became more focused on cooperation with the local community. Since 2006 the theatre has been running a project aimed at children from Węgajty and villages in the Jonkowo municipality – Theatre Pedagogy in Action, coordinated by Erdmute Sobaszek. It involved the organisation of a series of workshops in local community rooms. The project concluded by presenting the results of the activities in the form of a Theatre Festival (2006) and Children’s Festival (2007-2009). The experience gained during this work was also used later, for example during the Summer at the Theatre, a project of the Theatre Institute, in which the Węgajty Theatre took part four times (2014-2017), and in 2018 – having received no funding – organised it on its own.
The most important undertaking of the Węgajty Theatre is without doubt the Theatre Village festival, which has been organised since 2003. It can be described as an intensive cycle of cultural events, planned in a way that allows for the creation of a community of people who decide to experience aesthetic experiences and social support together, to share reflections, to carry out individual and group research. The programmes of Theatre Villages usually include: theatre performances (including performances by the Węgajty Theatre and the Needed Theatre), concerts, discussions, meetings, conversations about books, lectures, film screenings, dances, artistic and general humanistic workshops which are a social-artistic response to current social issues.
The Theatre Village has never been a review of alternative theatre or merely an arts festival (Paprocka 2011: 8). During the initial editions (especially those from 2003-2006), artistic activities were combined with events strengthening the local community and discussions about current social issues. In practice, the first few festivals were largely addressed to and partly co-created by the local community. Since 2007, the Theatre Village has involved the local community mainly in cooperation in logistics (construction of accommodation and catering facilities) and in the organisation of a fair at the Węgajty playground, as well as in connection with presentations of theatre performances prepared together with children and activities in the field of theatre pedagogy of Performeria Warszawy (a Warsaw collective existing until 2017, created with the participation of IST graduates).
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic (2020), the Theatre Village festival has been organised with far fewer participants in mind. In addition, in 2021-22 the festival was prepared by the Węgajty Theatre exclusively with its own funds and donations from individual participants, while the invited guests and artists resigned from royalties. Thus, the festival – in which volunteers have always played a huge role largely organising, together with the Flying Theatre Village Collective, the entire event – has become even more grassroots and independent.
Among other cyclical events currently organised (or co-organised) by the Węgajty Theatre are the autumn actions – the several-day, rural action Art in the Farmyard and the one-day, urban action City on the Road. Art in the Farmyard was organised for the first time in 2008 (20-23 September) in cooperation between artists associated with the Węgajty Theatre, who came up with the initiative for the event, and artists settled in the vicinity of Węgajty, who chose to create art far away from the cities, in proximity to nature, respecting the traditions of Warmia, running their own galleries, foundations, associations, as well as craftsmen, activists, producers of organic food and hosts of charming places. Currently, more than a dozen local organisations from quite distant villages, such as Węgajty, Pupki, Godki, Nowe Kawkowo, Szałstry, Skolity, Wołowno, take part in the event. The idea behind Art in the Farmyard is for artists and hosts to open the doors to their workshops or the establishments they run, so that participants in the event can, by passing from farm to farm, experience art in a more direct way. In fact, numerous art and social organisations from Warmia present both art and their own activities during Art in the Farmyard, organising numerous workshops, meetings and events.
City on the Road, on the other hand, has been taking place since 2012 (11 November). The event, described as a ‘creative walk’, is a collective wandering around Olsztyn combined with various performative activities in the public space (outdoors and indoors), initiated by artists associated with the Węgajty Theatre and their collaborators. As part of City on the Road, various places in Olsztyn connected with socio-cultural activity host meetings, concerts, theatre performances, exhibition openings, workshops and performative actions. It seems that City on the Road, to a greater extent than Art in the Farmyard, has a conceptual, ideological and even interventionist character. The event, which is organised partly in an open urban space in front of random spectators, often addresses socially engaged topics. This is evidenced, for example, by the subtitles of successive editions: Interkulti (2012), Wielogłos miejski (2014) (Urban polyphony), Współ-istniejmy (2016) (Co-existe), Translacje z inności (2018) (Translations from Otherness), Olsztyński marsz gościnności (2021) Olsztyn Hospitality March.
Art in the Farmyard and City on the Road share a relational character. They are organised in collaboration with other artists, organisations and cultural activists operating in the geographical vicinity of the Węgajty Theatre. Thus, the theatre, unlike the Theatre Village, shows itself – through these events – in a network of local connections.
In the crowns of trees – performances
The performances created in Węgajty after 1986, with two exceptions directed by Wacław Sobaszek, can be divided into cycles related to the evolution of the dramaturgical material, the working method, the director's role, the way of shaping the group as well as the purpose of the actions undertaken.
The first performance The Book of Nigunim (1987) resembled a concert and was a kind of prologue to the theatre work. It consisted of nigunim and fragments of texts by Martin Buber. It was created by the four founders of the Węgajty Village Theatre. In this, as in all productions of the theatre and the Schola, music was an important material. However, its role changed at different times and in different contexts. Subsequent performances – three by the Węgajty Village Theatre and the first performance by the Węgajty Theatre/Field Project – were created during a long and in-depth process of working with a relatively fixed group. Subsequent premieres took place every few years: The Vincenz Stories about the True Jew, the Antichrist and the Metropolitan, (1988), The Inn Towards Eternal Peace (1992), The Canterbury Tales (1996), Kalevala – Unwritten Fragments (2001).
The starting point for the work on the performances were outstanding literary texts. The basic textual material was proposed each time by the director. Although the texts for successive productions differed significantly in terms of form, subject matter, time and place of composition, they had certain features in common. They were examples of ‘grand narratives’ and a summa of past worlds, with images of individual protagonists or communities depicted at crucial moments.
Two further performances produced in Węgajty: Missa Pagana (2000) and The Ghostly Shroud (2001), the former directed by Mieczysław Litwiński and the latter by Wacław Sobaszek, are examples of open-air shows where the crucial factor was the combination of dramatic and musical materials with the landscape as well as the fact of actors and spectators moving in groups (a kind of Promenade Theatre). In The Ghostly Shroud, Wacław Sobaszek resorted to a dramatic text for the first time in the history of the Węgajty Theatre. In previous productions, the literary material consisted of prose and poetic fragments. Scenes from Adam Mickiewicz’s Dziady (Forefathers’ Eve) played out on the meadows in Węgajty were a symbolic way of evoking the ghosts of multicultural Warmia – a place of forced resettlement. The Węgajty Theatre also played a miniature performance in the open air called Mice Exist (2006) based on Brian Patten’s text, which is a version of an Indian fairy tale. The production is a remake of the Workshop’s 1981 production.
Synczyzna (Sonland), based on Witold Gombrowicz’s The Marriage and Trans-Atlantyk, from 2004, marked a caesura in the history of work on performances. The production was the culmination of dramatic theatre. After Sonland, the work on productions from this trend was carried out at the Haz Beszkwej Theatre (Needed Theatre), which produced productions based on texts by Stanisław Wyspiański, Witold Gombrowicz, William Shakespeare, Bruno Schulz, Alfred Jarry, Sławomir Mrożek, such as Wedding - Public Domain (2009), Married Iwona (2010, 2019), Midsummer Night’s Dream (2011), The Street of Crocodiles (2014), King Ubu (2016, 2022) and Tango or ballad about Edek (2020).
The Prologue for a Comedy, co-directed and co-created by Zofia Bartoszewicz and Erdmute Sobaszek, on the basis of poetry by Wisława Szymborska and Anna Wojtyniak as well as interviews with residents of the Social Welfare Home conducted by Kamila Paprocka, can be categorised as documentary theatre.
Another group of performances currently produced as part of IST are examples of performative theatre. They are created as montages, consisting of original improvisations by male and female performers, made by Wacław Sobaszek. The performances created during the workshops by the initially changing group address the issues of the contemporary world. Their basic ideas are marked in their titles. The tetralogy of performances from 2010-2013 refers to the concept of Empedocles, with each of the four elements being specified in the contemporary theatrical vision. These were: Water 2030 (2010), Earth B (2011), Fire, Crisis, Central Station (2012), Air E(x)missions (2013). The performances reveal a gloomy vision of the future, linked to the uncertainty of maintaining the resources necessary for life on Earth, to the problems arising from the mistreatment of our home-planet, from homelessness and all humanitarian crises, from actions whose consequences, both on an individual and global scale, could be tragic. In the face of such a situation, the artistic diagnosis contained in the subsequent performances is clear – the groundbreaking Zero Hour (2016) has taken place and therefore one should not be passive. In speaking and acting, it is worth taking care of Polyphony. A performance about killing, animals and love (2014), speaking and acting, maintaining Vigilance (2017) and following the principle of Less! (2015). Avoid Carefree (2019) and act with awareness of the importance of Solstices (2018). In situations of crises, the experiences of Hiatus (2020), mess (All This Mess 2021) and even night (Chronicles of Night 2022) should be consciously considered, as they constitute the everyday life of the contemporary inhabitants of Earth. IST's performances largely discuss borderline phenomena and experiences, both from an individual and collective perspective. Their focus balances between the orders of art and socio-cultural practices. IST's performance activity is an example of artivism.
From theatre-in-the-forest to forest-theatre[2]
The history of the Węgajty Theatre can be seen as the formation of a new theatre tradition (cf. Barba 1994). Its characteristic feature is the recognition that theatre-making implies a ‘biosocial process’ in which ‘biological’ and ‘social’ phenomena are not seen as complementary qualities, but as elements of a continuum between which there is no separation (cf. Konczal 2017: 409). This perspective stems from a vision of humans as biosocial beings or, to use Ingold’s terminology (2013), biosocial becomings (Konczal 2017: 409). A tradition of theatre perceived as a biosocial process can be constructed equally by elements of human activity – the artist, the animator, the ritual’s performer, such as in the case of Węgajty – the work of laboratory, alternative, inclusive theatres, engaged in projects with communities, folk art and the activities of ritual traditions’ continuators – as well as the activities of post-human actors, in this case the forest.
In the 1990s, Ludwik Flaszen wrote about theatre laboratories as places of intersection between scientific, craft and spiritual traditions, eastern and western spaces of encounter and exchange between representatives of different peoples, cultures and traditions (Flaszen 1998: 110). Such a definition in relation to the Węgajty Theatre needs to be complemented. In this theatre, encounters and exchanges are no longer limited to representatives of different peoples, cultures and traditions, but include representatives of many species and usually take place in a multi-species forest landscape (Lowenhaupt Tsing 2017).
Treating the forest as one of the components of the Węgajty Theatre’s tradition, it is worth identifying the similarities between the two phenomena. In presenting the characteristics of the forest, we refer to the findings of environmental anthropologist Agata Konczal (2017). The Węgajty Theatre, like a forest, although in a different way and to a different extent, constitutes a ‘multifunctional ecosystem’ (p. 338), fulfils an ecological (protective) function (p. 302), functions as a ‘green resource’ (p. 320), produces symbolic oxygen, and performs important social functions – it helps communities to form[3], significantly influencing people’s lives, their ‘health, well-being, providing space for recreation, influencing culture, science’ (p. 310), and ‘is knowledge’ (p. 340).
This theatre-in-the-forest, which has become a forest-theatre over the years, is characterised by a relentless reshaping of themes, motifs and formulas, an openness to what is new, at the same time remaining constant in variability and faithful in the practice of accepted forms and in the entanglement of relationships with chosen communities. It consistently rises to challenges, turning many constraints into opportunities for development. All the while it is guided by values – with the greatest possible independence from the systemic realm and with the closest possible coexistence within the biosocial realm. It is the values and the way in which human and interspecies relationships are formed that set the ethical azimuth and shape the bond of the Węgajty universe.
Translation and proofreading Michalina Stańdo
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[1] The research resulting in this text was funded by the National Science Centre, application number 2017/26/E/HS2/00357.
[2] First edition of the last fragment of the text, [in:] Magdalena Hasiuk, Od antropologii teatru do antropologii lasu - o pewnym rozumieniu Teatru Węgajty jako teatru antropologicznego....
[3] Cf. Agata Konczal’s lecture, Gdzie, jaki i czyj las? Perspektywa antropologii lasu, Pracownia na rzecz Wszystkich Istot, [in:] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePqCLFnnqfo (4’35”- 5’03”).