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ANAMNESIS OF ART: VOICE / MEMORY / IDENTITY
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JAROSEAW FRET
ANAMNESIS (written with capital letters) is the title of a triptych — a three¬
part performance “on the road to the theater,” which is not so much “only’a
reading of past records, or also a voice of the present but rather an attempt to
build up fields of memory thanks to the shared presence of actors and specta¬
tors. Its stage hic et nunc is to combine all of our effort together — anamnesis,
recollection, an attempt to represent but also be part of the performance, as
well as creating layers of active humanity, which we subconsciously pass to
each other with and without cultural identity or belonging.
Witnessing does not only mean to communicate issues based on facts, regis¬
ters, records, but also having the power of incorporation, opposing the passivity
of modern times, the passivity of voyeurism. In the case of being a spectator/
witness, it means having the power to oppose the universal, widespread derelict
pornography of the media. The three-part performance, which comprises the
following sections: “Medeas. On Getting Across”, then “Armine, Sister” (the
second part of the triptych, which we devoted to the now fully EU recognized
Genocide of the Armenians of 1915), and “Moirai” (the third part, dedicated
to the Desaparecidos), explores the subject of witness-action, trying to restore
to theater art its ethical dimension, not just constituting a new aesthetic form.
ORIGINS
Teatr ZAR came into being as a project of a group of people associated with the
Grotowski Center, long after theater practice had moved out of the venue and
even long after Grotowski’s death. The group actually began life in Brzezinka,
the former forest center of the Laboratory Theater, which we relaunched as a
workshop venue in the mid-1990s. Our first production, created in the years
when the ensemble was coming into existence, was inspired, among other
things, by the place where Jerzy Grotowski once worked. Its studio version
was later moved to the space of the Laboratory Theater in Wroclaw. There, in
the same space on which Apocalypsis cum figuris has left its unique mark,
permeating it to the last brick and transforming it into a space with a unique
presence, we created our subsequent productions.