Erdmute Sobaszek

She was born in 1957 in Lehnin in East Germany as the daughter of a theologian couple. Her mother came from near the Dutch border, her father from Kaliningrad, then Königsberg, the capital of the former East Prussia, from where he fled with his family to the West at the end of the war during the Red Army’s offensive on the eastern front. He viewed the loss of his closer homeland as historical justice caused by the war brought about by Germany. Erdmute’s upbringing in openness and an honest assessment of historical facts was also reinforced by her father's brother Reinhard Henkys, who wrote about Nazi crimes as a beginning journalist just after the war. The Henkys' name, associated by the East German authorities with a pacifist stance, prevented Erdmute from studying at Leipzig University. Following the paths of independent East German youth looking for a cultural alternative, she started to travel around Poland. He was 19 years old. He soon met Wacław Sobaszek, who at that time was a co-initiator of Pracownia "Workshop" Interdisciplinary Creativity and Research Centre in Olsztyn. They got married. Erdmute joined the "Pracownia" group and since 1977, together with her husband and a group of friends, she has been organising workshops and meetings in Olsztyn, encouraging conscious and creative participation in culture. While Wacław, who was 4 years older than her, was finishing his studies in art history, she decided to start learning at the Higher Pedagogical School in Olsztyn. During this time she became a mother: in 1980 Jan was born and two years later Jakub. In 1986, in one of the deserted farmhouses in Warmia, together with Wacław and a married couple, Małgorzata and Wolfgang Niklaus, they set up the Węgajty Village Theatre, which takes its name from the village and is based in the Sobaszeks’ barn. For Erdmute, torn between two cultures and two traditions, settling in the former East Prussian territory also had an identity significance – it was a return to the area of her father’s youth, a return to the vast land idealised in family memories. Since the beginning of the Theatre’s existence, as an actress and multi-instrumentalist, she has appeared in all the performances directed and staged by Wacław. She has also created two productions of her own: "Dramatic Sketch" (2003) based on Rainer Maria Rilke’s "The Duino Elegies" and a performance directed and produced together with Zofia Bartoszewicz "Prologue of a comedy. Scenes between poetry and document" (2010) based on the poetry of Anna Wojtyniak and Wisława Szymborska, which became a permanent part of Węgajty’s repertoire. As part of the theatre’s activity, she and Wacław cultivate the tradition of ritual theatre by organising carol singing tours in winter (since 1988) and spring (since 1990), as well as carnivals (since 1996) they also organise an international Theatre Village Festival (since 2003), as well as work with the Social Welfare Home in Jonkowo, since 2009 creating performances with the participation of its residents under the name of "Teatr Potrzebny". Because of her education (cultural education) and interests in theatre education, as well as her experience in project management, Erdmute is the originator of a number of educational and theatrical projects (among others, the programme ‘theatre education in action’ and the workshops "Summer in theatre"), co-author of a cycle of theatre seminars from the 1990s and a cycle of workshops and theatre expeditions carried out since 2000 under the name of Other Theatre School. She is the author of networking activities for local initiatives ("City on the Road’ and ‘Art in the Bypass"). Erdmute plays the clarinet and various folk instruments: from the violin, through the flute, pipes, to a nearly two-metre long ligava. The concert programme ‘Duets’, which she has been realising together with Waclaw since 2015, includes pieces from the Theatre's productions and traditional motifs, partly translated from Yiddish and German into Polish. An important aspect of her creative work is the intercultural experience of the musical dimension of the Polish language and the various German dialects, so different from the standard, High German Hochdeutsch. In addition to her artistic work, since the end of the nineties she has been managing the fundraising and administration of the Węgajty Association, which supports the activities of the Theatre, and since 2011 has become its only financial base. Erdmute is also a translator from German and co-author of the Węgajty Theatre blog (blog.teatrwegajty.eu).