Agnieszka Kazimierska presents
KATIE’S TALES
A Woman’s Desire in the Whirlwind of History
at UNITED SOLO FESTIVAL

Saturday, November 11, 2023 at 7:00pm (55 minutes)
Theatre Row 410 West 42nd Street, New York City
TICKETS

devised & performed by Agnieszka Kazimierska and directed by Mario Biagini,
Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards*

New York, NY – The vocal and poetic piece Katie’s Tales – already presented in nine countries – is coming to the United Solo Festival this Fall. Performed by Agnieszka Kazimierska, this moving solo performance interlaces song, poetry, evocative physicality, and striking stage imagery to create the dream traces of one woman’s encounter with love, war, ancestral memory, and a future still-to-come. Originally created at the renowned theatre research centre: Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards / Fondazione Teatro della Toscana, this exquisite theatre performance is not to be missed!

About the Performance

Katie, together with a couple of foreign servants, lives protected in her garden, under the shade of her cherry trees. Every day she receives visitors, every moment could bring the return of the one who left, and Katie keeps herself ready. In the shade of a cherry orchard thickening with the memories and unfulfilled desires of many generations, her own desire is taken up into the maddening whirlwinds of history.

Step gently but resolutely into a powerful, storied, feminine world of colour, song, and love – despite and beyond the wars and other ruins that (capital “H”) History keeps throwing our way.

Prof. Dariusz Kosiński, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, says “Katie’s Tales is a complex and multi-layered meeting with Katie – a girl whose life’s experiences and fate are encapsulated in the songs… [the name Katie] is traditionally used in Polish folk songs, poetry and tales, as a name of a female hero. Therefore, the encounter with Katie is a meeting with thousands of women whose experiences were excluded from and silenced by the heroic histories written and retold by men… [Agnieszka] transforms her solo performance into a fascinating dialogue with her Foremothers and – at the same time – her kinswomen.”

About the Writer/Performer

Agnieszka Kazimierska is an independent Polish actress working internationally on a variety of projects including Katie’s Tales. Inspired by post-Jungian and depth psychology, her works often explore historical, social, psychological-and-beyond phenomena from a personal angle. Between 2007-2021, she worked as a performer, theatre researcher, and teacher at the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards, an international theatre research centre based in Italy and established by the renown Polish theatre maker Jerzy Grotowski. (*the centre closed in 2022)

With support from the Polish Cultural Institute in New York.

Katie’s Tales premiered in 2018, under the direction of Mario Biagini (Associate Director of the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards, Teatro Nazionale Della Toscana until 2021), and it has since been presented in various festivals, theaters, theatrical and non-theatrical spaces, including in Pontedera, Italy (Teatro Era 2019, 2021); Florence, Italy (PARC-Teatro Della Pergola, 2018), Milán, Italy (FE Fabbrica dell’Esperienza Teatro, 2020); Selcuk, Türkiye (Medresesi Tiyatro, 2018, 2019); Perm, Russia (Diaghilev International Festival, 2018), Toronto, Canada (Studio Theatre, 2018); NYC, United States (Andrew Freedman Home Cultural Center, 2018, 2019); París, France (Theatre de La Ville, 2019) and, more recently, in Istanbul, Türkiye, (Theater Bahçe Galata, Theater BAU PERA SAHNE, Theater Alan Kadıköy, 2022) Sofía, Bulgaria (Toplocentrala Cultural Center, 2022); Edinburgh Fringe Festival, United Kingdom (Thistle Theater, 2022), Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States (Fusion at The Cell Theater, 2022, 2023), Buenos Aires, Argentina (Espacio Polonia, 2022), Rosario, Argentina (Espacio Bravo, 2022), Santa Fe, NM (Teatro Paraguas, 2023), Buenos Aires, Argentina (Area 623, 2023), and Rosario, Argentina (Teatro La Sonrisa De Beckett, 2023).

With and by Agnieszka Kazimierska (Poland)
Directed by Mario Biagini (Italy)
Photo by Renato Esposito
Produced by Fondazione Teatro della Toscana/Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards (Italy)
Performance is in English, with traditional Polish songs

Reviews
‘How can such a pure feeling emerge from an actor’s body?‘ – Franco Acquaviva, Sipario
‘The stage space is as a fifth, not a fourth, wall of the theatre: it allows us all to belong to each other, so as not to separate the audience from the stage with the artist…’ – Cristina T. Chiochia, Ticinolive