FOUR MORE is a sequence of stage compositions for four female performers and their bodies, space, sound and light. The performance is an intense, emotional, wordless, onirical theatrical séance at the crossroads of dream and reality, which makes use of the play of light and shadow and artistic procedures on the borderline between reality and illusion. The show is inspired by painting (in particular Albrecht Dürer’s linocut “Four Witches”) and the numerological and symbolic tradition. “Four More” is second part of a quadriptych under the common title “4”, in which the naked female body is confronted with metal objects. In “Four More” it is the hanging big heavy steel sheets that form the backdrop of the show.
Anyone who meditates on four things would be better for him never to be born: what is above, what is below, what is before and what is after.
Source: Hagigah, Talmud
In mathematics, the number four is the smallest natural composite number.
Source: Wikipedia
The ancients taught that any overall judgment must be quadruple. There were four stages of existence: ordinary (like a stone), existence with growth (plants), existence with growth and feeling (animals), and existence with growth, feeling and reason (man). According to the Stoics, the soul experiences four kinds of emotions: desire, joy, fear and sadness. Carl Gustav Jung argues that, before Plato, Greek philosophy tended to be “quaternary thinking” and that most symbols – if they are not human figures but are geometric or numerical in nature – are “four in nature”. The Bible, on the other hand, compares man to a vessel for four reasons: creation, content, usefulness, and benefit. In Germanic mythology, the four elements were associated with: Salamandra with fire, Ondine with water, Sylph with air and Kobolds with earth. Echoes of Germanic mythology and the symbolism of the number four can be heard both in Wagner’s work and in Goethe’s “Faust”. In part II of the poem, the dialogue between the Mermaids and the Nereids (Tritons) revolves around the image of 3 or 4 and 7 or 8 Kabirs, respectively. The Kabirs (or Kabeirs) are powerful, great teachers of order and secret power. It is always about one more than the magic number 3 or 7; he is that mysterious, omnipotent, omniscient, but also unknown, unspeakable.
Source: Michał Szurek, Numbers in Culture
The feminine word four in Polish used to be etymologically masculine. It is similar in most Slavic languages.
Source: Aleksander Brückner, The Etymological Dictionary of the Polish Language
In the numerology of the first centuries of Christianity, the numbers 3 and 4 are of key importance, which refer to the fundamental opposition between the spirit and the body, where 3 stands for spirituality and 4 for carnality. Four by analogy with 4 winds, 4 elements and 4 seasons is the number assigned to the earth and, consequently, to people. In the mystical interpretation, the name Adam is associated with what is associated with man, because it consists of 4 letters. The numbers 3 and 4 are central to Christian numerology. The sum of the fundamental values gives the number 7. It is the combination of the corporeal and the spiritual, therefore it is the first total number.
Source: V. F. Hoppe, La Symbolique médiévale des nombres
One of the most famous engravings by Albrecht Dürer is “Four Naked Women” (or “Four Witches”). Four naked women stand in a cramped, empty room. Each of them is positioned differently towards the viewer, and their eyes are directed towards something invisible. One has a small head on a large body and a strict, regular, almost classic profile. The second has a mildly contoured, pretty face with an expression of distress, and her body is younger than the rest. The third one has her back to us – her face is not visible. The fourth, which is half-hidden behind the rest, has a rustic face with incredibly tight lips. Their bodies are heavy. The ideals of beauty are changing, but it seems that Dürer had no intention of portraying the perfect beauties in this engraving. The naturalness and spontaneity of the bodies shown in the picture mean that we do not think about ancient grace, but rather about living nature. In those days, men and women often visited the baths together. Dürer was probably inspired by the women observed there, who could also pose naked for him. Bone and a skull lie under the women’s feet, and a monster (devil?) looks out from behind the door. Above their heads is a round lamp with a date and three mysterious letters “OGN” that are interpreted in different ways, but neither interpretation seems convincing. It is not even known whether German or Latin words are hidden behind these letters. Their meaning remains forever lost.
Source: Painting Planet
Tetraphobia is an aversion or fear of the number 4. This is a widespread superstition in East Asia, incl. in China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and Vietnam. In most dialects of Chinese and other Asian languages that have many borrowings from Chinese, the word “four” (sì) sounds similar to the word “death.” In buildings, the number of the fourth storey is avoided, this applies to hotels, apartment blocks and hospitals. In the case of residential complexes, block numbering 4, 14, 24 is avoided and replaced with the numbers 3A, 13A or 23A. In Korea, the letter F is used instead of the 4th floor. In China, the numbers 14, 24 and 74 are considered even more unlucky, because 14 sounds like “wanting death”, 24 like “easy death” and 74 like “surely death”.
Source: Wikipedia
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created and directed by Marcin Herich
choreography cooperation: a team
acting: Alina Bachara, Katarzyna Gogacz, Karolina Wosz, Marta Zielonka
music: Clint Mansell, Dark Sanctuary, Fetish Park, Mr Geoffrey & JD Franzke, Social Interiors
cooperation in the arrangement of space, scenery and light: Cezary Kruszyna
duration of the performance: 55 minutes
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PRESENTATIONS
- 11, 12, 13 November 2021, Katowice (Stage/Atelier of Teatr A Part, premiere)
- 26, 27 November 2021, Katowice (Stage/Atelier of Teatr A Part)
- 18 December 2021, Katowice (Stage/Atelier of Teatr A Part)
- 21, 23 January 2022, Katowice (Stage/Atelier of Teatr A Part)
- 4, 5 March 2022, Katowice (Stage/Atelier of Teatr A Part)
- 9, 10 April 2022, Katowice (Stage/Atelier of Teatr A Part)
- 7, 8 June 2022, Katowice (Stage/Atelier of Teatr A Part, International Performing Arts Festival A Part)
- 5 September 2022, Podgorica, Montenegro (KIC Budo Tomovic, International Alternative Theatre Festival FIAT)
- 10 September 2022, Tychy (Teatr Mały, Tychy Festival of Independent Theatres Andromedon)
- 17 September 2022, Katowice (Stage/Atelier of Teatr A Part)
- 25 September 2022, Gdańsk (Klub ŻAK, Gdańsk Dance Festival)
- 13 November 2022, Katowice (Stage/Atelier of Teatr A Part)
- 8 January 2023, Katowice (Stage/Atelier of Teatr A Part)
- 11 January 2023, Kraków (Teatr KTO)
- 30 April 2023, Jelenia Góra (Zdrojowy Teatr Animacji, Festival of Avant-garde Theatre and Culture PESTKA)
- 25 May 2023, Timișoara, Romania (Csiky Gergely Hungarian State Theatre, Euroregional Theatre Festival TESZT)
- 25 July 2023, Chania, Crete, Greece (Mikis Theodorakis Theatre, Dance Days Chania)
- 13 August 2023, Mexico City, Mexico (Teatro Raul Flores Canelo CENART, International Contemporary Dance Festival of Mexico City FIDCDMX)
- 26, 27 of September 2023, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (Casa de Teatro, International Contemporary Dance Festival EDANCO)
- 10, 11 of February 2024, Katowice (Stage/Atelier of Teatr A Part)
- 17 March 2024, Wrocław (Grotowski Institute, Interstices. Women in the Performing Arts)
- 28 April 2024, Prague, Czech Republic (Venuše ve Švehlovce, Venus Days Festival)
- 7 October 2024, Bydgoszcz (Miejskie Centrum Kultury, International Theatre Festival SYTUACJE/RELACJE)
- 13 October 2024, Rovigo, Italy (Teatro Studio, VISIONI)
- 11, 12 of April 2025, Katowice (Stage/Atelier of Teatr A Part)
Co-financed by the Self-Government of the Silesian Voivodeship.
Project awarded in the TEATROGRANTY 2021 competition, organized by Institution of Culture Katowice City of Gardens.
The performance received the ‘Slobodan Milatović’ award – main award for best director/author at the International Alternative Theatre Festival FIAT in Podgorica, Montenegro.
The documentary set, made by a photographer Grzegorz Krzysztofik during a rehearsal for the performance has been qualified for the final of the 2022 Theatre Photography Competition of the Theatre Institute in Warsaw, the main and most prestige Polish theatre photography award.
REVIEWS
Villas of the Mysteries
“Four More” by Teatr A Part, as the name of the performance suggests, expanded the 2018 “Four” (produced with the Amereya Theatre & Guests) with new arrangements, choreography and visual ideas. Marcin Herich explored new symbols and meanings related to the number four (he added the Chinese dialect, Talmud and Albrecht Dürer), but of course it was just a pretext to create an autonomous, intimate spectacle in which – of course – ancient threads (and bundles) were interconnected and contemporary, the body as a holistic whole and the body as an object of combat, light and shadow play. Visually, “Four More”, thanks to very skilful work with light and great ideas, was a masterpiece (I’m not afraid to use this word). Choreographically – he was also approaching the ideal. I absolutely did not pay attention to the “metaphysics” of the number four, connotations and cultural references, my senses were only “busy” with experiencing it and enjoying it – I think about the pleasure that comes from participating in the mystery. Indeed, it was a wordless sequence of compositions, following each other like moving slides, although the order did not seem to matter much. The body stories are not linear.
Radosław Kobierski, miasto-ogrodow.eu, 06/2022
Using the body or when shame occurs
A dance performance with elements of physical and dramatic theatre, “Four More” deals primarily with the body, the use of the body, the unveiling and laying bare of the soul. This unique visual and dance experience is brought to the stage by Alina Bachara, Katarzyna Gogacz, Karolina Wosz and Marta Zielonka.
The performance opens with four female characters in ballet skirts, standing in front of four door-like structures, wearing masks on their faces, moving like robots that resemble puppets, ballerinas in music boxes. A ballerina, a stereotype – every girl’s dream and a female doll – every man’s dream. Prejudice. Stereotypes.
Immediately afterwards, these four bodies appear naked, without masks, and the symbols simply flow through a random sequence of associations. The performers are naked all the time. The nakedness of the body symbolises the vulnerability of the artist to the audience. What happens when the masks drop, do we dare to be naked in the face of reality?
It is not long before we realise that shame has been made visible through physical exposure. A shame that is mainly confined to the female body. Because of a sexuality that ‘threatens’ men, because of a body that is not beautiful enough, young enough, perfect enough, because of shame as such, the source and origin of which we find in sacred books from centuries ago.
Through asynchronous movements that simulate both the conflict, the playfulness and the routine of life, the four naked bodies in front of us show us the desire to free ourselves from shame, from convention, from the artificial norms of the modern, male world. A performance that addresses an issue we don’t think about when we talk about alienation, because we always focus on the spiritual.
But what about the physical, the mundane, the material that is given to us? How and when did we become alienated from our own body, such as it is? When, under the influence of consumer norms, did we stop loving ourselves in our original form? How to see yourself anew in your beauty?
When, at the end, we see four women in black dresses screaming through the windows of the train called life (or maybe it is death at all), we realise how much we are trapped and how much our conformism, or rather slavery to the norms that limit our physicality, affects our mental, spiritual and overall life path.
Stela Mišković, Portal Analitika (portalanalitika.me), 09/2022
A dance of emotions, bodies and pure energy
The fantastic direction of Marcin Herich and the dance of emotions, bodies and energy of four girls fascinated the audience of the Festival of International Alternative Theater FIAT last night. The play “Four More” produced by the Polish Teatr A Part, with the collective choreography of all actors, in addition to the naked bodies of actresses, dancers, ballerinas, and above all women, also exposed the audience, at least in front of themself.
The physical-visual theater piece is a series of stage compositions that are intended especially for female performers and their bodies and the space they are in, the sound and light they play with and who plays with them. Every movement, sound, facial expression and look is full of symbolism, and the play constantly pushes the boundaries of comfort and expectation, thus bringing individuals in the audience to tears, chills, joy, awakening repressed strength and feelings.
The four of them: Alina Bachara, Katarzyna Gogacz, Karolina Wosz, Marta Zielonka, in ballet skirts and with their backs turned to the audience at the beginning of the performance, are further transformed by listening to their own, but also the audience’s emotions and energy, the circumstances in which they live. After they take off their white tulle skirts, their naked bodies painted with shadows and light tell poignant stories, they scream desire and the struggle that is constantly being fought for themselves, within themselves, for others, facing the scenes that the world puts on the stage.
The Polish ensemble put on an intimate spectacle for the FIAT audience, which followed and breathed with silence, sighs, anxiety, but also firmness and will as the dancers’ movements dictated, and they too felt the audience’s energy and used it, brought it into their performance and enlivened it with their performance.
The girls on stage were so rhythmically, emotionally and psychologically balanced, but also independent and free that they complemented each other perfectly, either like Lego blocks or puzzles or like magnets of opposite sexes.
Various motives and themes are recognized, from intimate to global ones, the actresses themselves say after playing and they point out that their stories are connected to a series of current events and experiences, personal, theirs, global… From women and acceptance of her body, which is made into nonsense with today’s beauty standards and competition to look the same, through local issues in their community, such as the decision to limit the right to abortion and therefore the right to own one’s body and life, further through the historical women’s struggle and (r)evolution, up to global and current problems such as the coronavirus, the war in Ukraine, time for yourself, dealing with yourself, parenting, losses and many others… Various difficult or neglected issues and topics were told without a single word, in the simple language of the body and emotions that show all the complexity and the philosophy of this world and life, from the beginning until today, and into the future, which they seem to be warning us about at the end of the play.
Throughout the play, different symbols alternate in the viewer, and the four women sensually and combatively show all the beauty of their perfectly imperfect and so in that sense perfect bodies, the strength they possess and which is the primordial strength of nature and life that always continues.
With the sounds of the wilderness, one might say the jungle, the four of them, like Amazons on stage, search for themselves while life unfolds and while often others make decisions for them. But they refuse to comply and fight, they fight to know and accept themselves, to unite with their body and feel who they are, which are the possibilities and options they further provide to individuals in the audience.
In some moments of the performance, numerous symbols of the number four appear like a flash, among the first ones about the four basic elements – water, air, earth, fire; four Seasons; maybe four ages of life, questions of who, what, where, how, and that’s how we come to the philosophy of what is above, what is below, before and after, there are also four dimensions of the world, and further, according to the Stoics, the soul experiences four types of emotions: desire, joy, fear, and sadness… And we had all that last night in the big hall of the Cultural and Information Center “Budo Tomović” in Podgorica.
The piece lasts a little less than an hour, and during that time it starts an eruption, enabling numerous interpretations and identifications, from individual to individual. It is especially important to point out that, even though they are completely naked, in no moment of dancing, acting, screaming, or catharsis, none of the female performers get a sexual connotation, objectification, vulgarity, superficiality or anything similar, but on the contrary, they open up deep internal questions, dilemmas, ideas…
And from the initial dance in pure white skirts like little girls, screams to win their own rights and freedoms, through beams of light aimed directly at their bellies alluding to birth and life, and beyond the fur of skinned foxes that they proudly wear around their necks, and then the symbolic abandonment of those foxes at their feet like some kind of sacrificial ritual, the strong red light seems to show that the human race is going to hell or destruction, as evidenced by their last look addressed to the audience full of resentment, disappointment, maybe even disgust, but also sadness, and then pride, because all of this can be a great passionate victory won with blood. It depends on what you feel.
Jelena Kontić, VIJESTI, 09/2022
After the September edition of the Gdańsk Dance Festival
“Four More” is a sequence of aesthetically well-thought-out image-scenes creating a non-linear story about the complexity of the meaning of the number four. The story is told by the naked or only decorated with costume elements bodies of four performers (Alina Bachary, Katarzyna Gogacz, Karolina Wosz, Marta Zielonka), light, shadows, lamps, sound and four rectangular glittering boards hanging at the back of the stage.
Tetraphobia is a term describing the fear of the number four, particularly prevalent in Far Eastern culture. It derives from the similarity of the sound of the words ‘four’ and ‘death’. From the very beginning, the creators of the performance infect the audience with this state of anxiety and maintain it until the very end. Women dressed only in a tutu are waiting for us on stage. For a moment more, we might be under the illusion that they are Degas’s dancers, but when they begin to move clumsily, we see white masks with permanently defined facial expressions on their faces. With another image, a similar configuration of bodies, the director alludes to Albrecht Dürer’s engraving “Four Naked Women” – full of anxiety, with the title characters depicted with a skull, a bone and a devil in the background. Finally, in one of the final scenes, the female performers adorn their bodies with the furs of dead animals (raccoons?), all the while posing gracefully, as if they thought they were facing death. The atmosphere of horror is fuelled by music full of disturbing noises, both human and animal, directing our imagination into unpleasant directions.
The nakedness of the performers brings us closer to them, evokes in us a sense of the tangibility of their bodies, of their immediacy, of their sincerity. Tangibility, when the women in a collective scene using contact work touch each other, cling to each other skin-to-skin, show us their plasticity, their susceptibility to stretching, stretching, deformation, but also their sensitivity to stimuli. There is a sense of immediacy when, in an interesting scene based on the play of light and shadow, bizarre shapes appear on rectangular panels – the shadows of the performers’ hands: transforming, terrifying creatures issuing directly from the women’s stomachs. Not from the folds of their clothes, but as if from cracks in their skin. Finally, there is a sincerity when these naked bodies stand, act or simply be for us against a backdrop of reflective screens bringing out almost all their details.
Light is the strong point of this performance. The creators do not signal its correlation with any meaning of the number four, yet they have focused on it a great deal. In fact, one gets the impression that it is the fifth character, the stage partner of the women. It is the light that brings out for us the meanings hidden in the performance. It works perfectly with the glittering sets that form the backdrop for the performers’ actions. It precisely separates the light and dark zones, creating luminous corridors for what is to be seen and shaded areas for what should remain hidden. It goes away and comes in, like the soft glow of the lamps swinging from the ceiling, in whose rays the women try to warm themselves.
Natalia Szafrankiewicz, taniec polska.pl, 10/2022
A masterpiece
There are more things on earth and in heaven than your philosophers dreamed of. For it is not always the case that language can say everything that the head can think… This is why Marcin Herich and four actresses are trying to reach for the stars – to tell the untellable. Giving each audience member his or her own, different and individual story in a single performance. The four actresses put their bodies on the line in the name of such a challenge. They counter them with sheet metal – screens. In fact, they oppose the shadows of their bodies. It is as if we descend for a moment into Plato’s cave and experience the fragility and insignificance of life – the shadow of birth. On the other hand, the four women live on stage, it seems, only by the light… At times they strut in male poses as if falling into momentary states of self-confidence, only to become fragile and light-chasing again a moment later. Sometimes we descend as if into Dante’s hell, and there is no end to the torment. How beautiful it would be to publish The Divine Comedy with illustrations/photographs of Teatr A Part’s masterpiece! In this luminous hell, a woman’s loud and terrible scream can be heard. Bodies try unsuccessfully to break through these crude metal barriers. The delicate, disposable, miraculous man is opposed by his own creation. The armour of the dresses does not help.
There are artists who want to finish the art every time, to pronounce the world/man to the end. And this is the case: in “Four More” there is no deception of theatre. There is no pretence or acting. The human body is precarious, it is trembling and fragile, but it is everything. We have seen theatre that is difficult but beautiful, total, honest and pure – a successful attempt to say it all. A masterpiece.
Ryszard Grzywacz, www.facebook.com/PestkaFestival, 05/2023
Pillars of existence
On the stage of the Bogdan Nauka Animation Theatre, four women are preparing for a performance. The outlines of their figures are barely visible in the dim light. All we know is that they are wearing ballerina skirts. When the light turns on we see that each of them has her face painted and the skirts are their only costume. Their hair is tied up, their faces are whitewashed with their lips and eyes highlighted in black. Below the horizon we see four bright metal rectangles. Behind them, the women disappear for a moment, only to return to the stage naked, unpainted – dressed only in their own emotions and the light. “Four More” by Teatr A Part is a poetic tale without words. On stage we see sisterhood, togetherness, the strength of women, but jealousy and rivalry will also happen. With their complete stripping away of costume, they seem to tame nudity. In this, they remind me of the work of photographer Zofia Lenczewska-Samotyj, who shoots naked people in nature while showing them in a very sensitive way. The show’s heroines know that we can see every nuance of their individual beauty. They talk about a woman’s belly as the beginning of existence and a body that records everything in itself. In beautiful images accompanied by music, they surprise, tempt, terrify and fascinate. We see beauty and joy as well as suffering or imprisonment (in their own fate, body). They carry light and seem to become light themselves. Each of them may be the lady with the (dead!) ermine, the mother of the devil, but the four of them associate somewhat with the caryatids as pillars. Pillars of the existence of a larger world structure.
Joanna Marcinkowska, Dziennik Teatralny, 05/2023
The Human Garden and the Witch Hunt
Fortunately, this year’s TESZT festival also included uncomfortable performances that pushed viewers beyond their comfort zone.
“Four More” by Teatr A Part in Katowice leaves the viewer free to interpret. This creation, composed of fragments, a series of short stage movement etudes for four female performers, is intended for viewers over 18 years of age, as it contains nudity. The performance has a radical, dark tone, with an industrial city in the background. It is also a monument, a tribute to “witches”, women who do not want to accept the roles imposed on them and who, in one way or another, are punished for it, confronted with the pressure and expectations of the world around them. And ultimately with myself.
Creation is the second part of the quadriptych “4” by director Marcin Herich. The inspiration for the performance was one of Albrecht Dürer’s most famous etchings, “Four Naked Women”, depicting four women standing in a cramped room – perhaps in the corridor of a bathhouse – in various poses, facing each other, staring into nothingness.
The dark and empty stage is filled with the presence of four women who at first glance seem to have little in common. From behind four suspended metal plates, performers emerge dressed in tutu dresses, with their faces painted, imitating the ballet choreography to a fragment of Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake”. It’s a grotesque and terrifying scene, but as the light intensifies, their shadows appear on the hanging metal sheets, taking on a life of their own, and the atmosphere becomes more welcoming as the industrial setting allows. In the next scene, they take off their clothes and in this more intimate situation they become closer, they begin to discover each other. Scene after scene, they abandon their inhibitions in the ecstasy of self-discovery, only to fail spectacularly. At one point they thrash about in the wobbly light of hanging light bulbs like moths that have not found what they expected, at another they emerge from the darkness with fox collars around their necks, freed from their shadows, performing a ritual dance until their sophisticated movements become desperate, furious swirls. Four women magically move the elements around them like witches and are able to harmonize with the changes taking place around them. Their doubts, extremes and vulnerabilities reveal their true selves. Finally, they dress up, put on black outfits, ergo they become their own shadows, and emptiness falls on the stage instead of a curtain.
The division into four is ubiquitous in the performance, in the lighting, in the scenography, in the rhythm. It is the starting point for every action. By the way, the symbol for the number “four” is one of the most powerful symbols in literature. According to Jung, the “four” symbolizes the world torn into opposites, human existence related to the four elements, nature. Including death, of course. The symbolism of the number four also includes the cross, whose horizontal and vertical articulation symbolizes the whole, and the four arms point to all sides of the world. The cross is the most solid of structures, a symbol of static wholeness. And everyone has their own.
Artner Szilvia Sisso, szinhaz.net, 06/2023
Ghosts in the theatre
Teatr A Part’s “Four More”, directed by Marcin Herich, certainly also had ambitions to reach for depth. Four naked women on stage accompanied by a fifth actor, who is the light. It is, as we know, a risky game. But this play of the human body-costume with light proved a winner for Teatr A Part. It is not easy to work out a dramaturgy with such means and actually create a story – about a man simply, about his entanglement in the intertwining forces of nature, culture, convention, social norms and, above all, entanglement in his own humanity.
Jędrzej Soliński, Odra, 07,08/2023
Four women dressed only in short tutus sit with their backs to the audience staring at the four hanging metal panels that make up the scenography. Their attire hints at the first scene of the piece: to the sound of soft piano music they perform amateur ballet steps, their faces covered under masks of an exaggerated balletic expression of high brows, wide eyes and slightly open lips. The piece continues in a succession of scenes where the women, now completely naked, embody different abstract narratives that seem like studies on femininity and the female body. The lighting, often warm and frontal, sometimes red, reveals the bodies in the raw, without any intention of beautification, giving a sense of humanness and fragility.
Corporality
In “Four More”, the narrative produced by the body is subtly complemented by other theatrical signs, creating a symbolic and literally very visual effect. The authors point to the inspiration of Albrecht Dürer’s linocut ‘Four Witches’, I would add Degas’ “balletic” works to this, all in a stage setting that makes use of the cold sheen of tin plates and their metallic vibrations. The plasticity or even poeticism of ‘Four More’ is largely founded on the effect of playing with textures, moods and the thoughtful use of lighting: delicate, half-naked female bodies, the tulle of ballet skirts and soft shadows clash with darkness, electronic, trance-like music and the vibration of metal. The score of stage movement, though relaxed and unsubordinated to a clear narrative, creates a story of growing into womanhood and taking on socially sanctioned roles: from the sexuality of the lover to the mythical significance of mother-Gaia. The performance is perhaps the fullest exemplification of the assumptions of the series ‘Interstices. Women in the Performing Arts‘ series, an affirmation and celebration, and at the same time a critical look at the notion of femininity, strongly exposing its gendered dimension: the dancers’ bodies, the visible and the external, are after all ultra-feminine, but at the same time characterised by inner strength and awareness of the existence of these socially sanctioned roles.
Justyna Kowal, Didaskalia. Gazeta Teatralna 04/2024
Four More – women’s bodies dressed in light
What does it mean to be a woman? How do we perceive women? And how do they perceive themselves? As part of this year’s 9th edition of the Days of Venus theatre festival in Prague, dedicated to women’s original theatre, the Polish theatre company Teatr A Part presented itself. During the Czech premiere, four performers presented “Four More”, a love letter about femininity and a bittersweet commentary on how today’s society perceives the (not so) fragile gender.
This “pas de quatre” is not only a dance concert for four bodies, but literally an ode to the body. The second in the triptych of previous theatre projects under the artistic direction of Marcin Herich, balances on the border between a theatre performance, meditation and a cleansing ritual. In front of the audience, four performers, in a series of shorter and longer stage images, present their physicality in space and time in which the female body is at the same time an object of desire, a pretext for prejudice and a tool of manipulation.
The theme of manipulation, i.e. the relationship between the controller and the controlled, is the key concept of this unique play of light, shadows and ambient sounds. Already the introductory ballet sequence to the melody of Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake” evokes the atmosphere of a strange puppet theater. It is not entirely clear who is really pulling the strings here: the performers, dressed only in a starched skirt and a neutral Brechtian mask, give the impression of being laced up to the point of convulsions while routinely performing pirouettes, arabesques and grand pliés – and this is a successful starting point from a dramatic point of view. As soon as they put aside their anonymous uniforms and, without saying a word, stand in front of the audience only in the Venus costume, their individuality, including different somatotypes and facial features, becomes even more visible. The entire concept of the show is based on their physical contrast and the fragility of the relationship between their bodies. The power relations between them change during the performance, the performers connect with each other and disconnect again, they hold each other tightly and suddenly let go, sometimes they support each other, sometimes they push each other away. Through a surprisingly wide range of interactions, they discover how frighteningly easy it is to gain power over another person. Or rather, over the second one.
The choreography does not impose any specific style on the characters, except for the opening fragment in a ballet tone. Instead, it is based on the movement capabilities of every human body, regardless of dance experience, age, physical condition or overall body size. In the dance sequences you can see contemporary elements, legs and arms float in the ether with intuitive freedom, as the dancers allow themselves to be carried away by the impulses of their own bodies: standing, sitting and lying, they explore the positions they are in. Each individual movement – of body and mind – seems to be a surprise for them, a rediscovery of their own movement repertoire. Sometimes they are preoccupied with each other, sometimes they synchronize unplanned, as if there was an unspoken understanding between them. It is certainly no coincidence that some spatial solutions refer to folk dances; moving in a circle or rhythmically slapping the thighs creates the impression of a tight-knit, four-person community. At the same time, the viewer is kept in suspense by the well-thought-out contrast between the stages of rest, bordering on stiffness, and the maniacal repetition of simple, often violent movements (rolling from side to side, rolling forward, jumping, lying on the ground, hitting a metal plate). Especially after faster fragments, further moments of absolute calm are necessary, uneven breathing and visible muscle tension of breathless performers become a key choreographic element in themselves. The simplicity of the movements is emphasized by clean lines and strict symmetry of individual groups of four people, which smoothly flow into one another during the performance: the motifs of standing in a crowd or a line, circular movement and multi-level static poses are repeated in various variants and gain in strength with each subsequent iteration. The goal is natural harmony (or carefully planned opposition), not perfect coordination.
The greatest strength of the show is the intensity of individual hypnotic scenes, dramatically composed in such a way that each audiovisual element itself blurs the boundaries between reality and illusion, or between the aestheticization and sexualization of female shapes. Sometimes it’s like looking through a keyhole. And that’s the point. The dancers themselves keep eye contact with the audience from time to time, and their gaze is one big mystery: are they challenging, provoking, or just passively watching? Their constant, enigmatic expression whenever the imaginary fourth wall is broken causes discomfort, or at least raises many uncomfortable questions about sexual objectification and beauty ideals. Playing with what is considered sensual in the human body – and above all in what context – combined with the nudity of the performers, causes the viewer to constantly oscillate between fascination with what he sees and his own sense of awkwardness: how to interpret the individual moving dead bodies. nature without falling into simple voyeurism? Nudity on stage is nothing revolutionary. In fact, it is an embodied paradox, evoking a sense of vulnerability and, at the same time, the immeasurable power that the human body possesses. “Four More” bets on this duality – and it is a successful bet.
When it comes to the scenographic concept, the creators use the absolute minimum of means to achieve the maximum effect. The stage consists of four metal plates suspended from the ceiling, the harsh light of four bulbs, red ambient tones and spotlights installed close to the ground. The monochromatic color palette guarantees narrative unity, instead of a clear plot, an image-forming cycle is cleverly preferred, which is also reflected in the choreography. The more dynamic passages in particular evoke the atmosphere of “Walpurgis Night”, while in the slower sequences the claustrophobic space of the bare walls of the Venuše ve Švehlovce is immersed in Renaissance chiaroscuro.
The creators of the show do not deny being inspired by painting. The very first scene in ballet costumes brings to mind Edgar Degas’s pastel dancers with their playful innocence, although it seems that, thanks to their ironic grotesque, they have fallen out of Hieronymus Bosch’s panopticon. A recognized reference and at the same time the starting point for the creation of the show is Albrecht Dürer’s painting “Four Naked Women”, also known as “Four Witches”. There is indeed something ritualistic, instinctive, sometimes even animalistic in the combination of twilight resembling the red glow of a crackling fire with the reflections of bare skin and rhythmic breathing. When one of the latest stage miniatures shows the performers posing standing or lying down in fox furs, the concept of the death of nature seems to take on a completely new meaning in the industrial setting. Not only the scenography, but also the sound is minimalist. Deafening synthetic interludes, sometimes ambient forest sounds, and, above all, long fragments of silence add color to the stage action or complement it in counterpoint. What is most telling is the lack of external sound. The dominant musical component here is again physicality. Body rubbing against body, sudden shouts, half-loud whispers, panting, inhaling and exhaling, all this intensifies the intense feeling of memento mori in the viewer. Female performers seem to be becoming more and more dehumanized. Their bodies seem to gradually merge with the “nature” surrounding them. In this respect, in one of the most impressive scenes, the dancers lie on their backs and in the cones of the spotlights they create a macabre play of shadows on bare iron plates in the background: subtle movements of the lower abdomen and fingers create the optical illusion of four seeds growing as if from the womb of the earth. Incredibly creative.
Fragility and steadfastness, femininity and masculinity, life and death. The social impact of the show, supported by an extraordinary audiovisual impact, consists in finding and then reconciling apparent contradictions – scenic, interpretative and existential. At the same time, the creators do not resort to open politicization of women’s issues and social involvement. They move strictly within the boundaries of performance, which makes their message even more current. In several scenes, the performers circle around four light bulbs like human moths. The light sources and lighting themselves become a symbol of goals that are still unattainable for many women. But what if the true purpose of a person’s life is not development? What if it is a game of opposites that each of us carries within us? It just depends on who’s watching.
Rozálie Andělová, Dance Context (www.tanecniaktuality.cz), 05/2024
Photos: Maciej Dziaczko, Agnieszka Seidel-Kożuch
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