THIS RESTING, PATIENCE

Attention: Audience members may leave the performance whenever it is convenient for them.

Employing an experimental format, “This resting, patience” upsets the passivity of installation and the time-delineation and dramaturgical resolution of performance and steps away from the tradition of viewing dance as an alienated spectacle to instead emphasize its immanent sociability. 

In its devotion to the body, the work proposes sensuousness and dancing as timeless and democratically available technologies of undoing the world and projecting the continuous present into a future that lasts, quintessentially tender, infatuated, attentive.

SPRINGBACK MAGAZINE:

“Tanztage Berlin 2024: rites of hope and grief”

8. March 2024, by Evgeny Borisenko

The floor is covered with a thick cobalt-blue carpet, reminiscent of exhibition rooms, airport lounges, vast expanses of ocean and myriads of other liminal ‘resting’ spaces. Dziarnowska and her on-stage partner Leah Marojević execute sweeping, ebbing-and-flowing solos to Dionne Warwick singing ‘What the World Needs Now’ played on loop. Both in deep blue backless chiffon gowns, they keep a smart balance between control and release, always finely attuned to each other. Their bouncing knee kicks and waltzing shoulder swings translate regal chic and cold detachment, and chime with Warwick’s lulling ‘love, sweet love’ suddenly heard as if from a distance. (…) Their patient exploration of longing physicality and yearning for love unravels into the immediacy of upbeat punk-rock fuelled solos and swaggering disco scenes, all carried by a seamless musical score. 

This resting, patience never gives up on its main theme: attraction, sensuousness and the alienation of desire; but it does transcend its own message in a way only the greatest works of art can. Not a minute of this three-hour show is tarred with lazy transitions or convenient topicality. Dziarnowska and Marojević master their score without showing off their exceptional virtuosity: their controlled refinement is never obtuse, and the emotional tension they build remains unabated. And when the show ends with the same looped ‘What the World Needs Now’ sequence that sees both performers bounce and swing away the exhaustion, hardly anyone in the audience can withhold a tear.

Ewa Dziarnowska is a dancer and choreographer based in Berlin, working across performance, collaboration and research. Her recent projects – This resting, patience, A Room With a Better View and https://4677684728466.com – reflect her sustained inquiry into improvisation as both method and philosophy. Through attention to sensation, rhythm and relation, she investigates how movement can generate knowledge and resist the pressures of coherence and productivity. Her practice unfolds in real time, balancing precision and spontaneity while questioning the social and aesthetic frameworks through which dance is produced, witnessed and circulated.

Leah Marojević’s practice spans performance, choreography, teaching, dramaturgy, mentorship and support for other artists. Choreographic commissions include Pre-Professional Year, Sydney Dance Company (2019), London Contemporary Dance School Graduating Season (2020), Mass Hysteria Collective (2020) and Matilde Cerruti Quara, Jupiter Woods (2020). Leah collaborates regularly and has worked and performed for visual artists, companies and choreographers; Colette Sadler, Ola Maciejewska, Theo Clinkard, Jefta Van Dinther, Megan Rooney, Ewa Dziarnowska, Paulina Olowska, Emmilou Rößling, Sarah Browne, Sam Williams, Holly Blakey, Candoco Dance Company, Joe Moran among others.

Krzysztof Bagiński is an artist and organizer from Poland. He is a co-curator of W Brzask (At Dawn), a series of experimental music shows in Warsaw. As a sound artist, he works closely with choreography and performance.

Jacqueline Sobiszewski – visual artist, works with light, video, film and photography. Born and raised in the Netherlands. Studied at the Cinematography Department of the State Higher School of Film, Television and Theater in Łódź. Combining various techniques, always looking for a new visual language in various fields of art, cooperating with directors, musicians, choreographers and individually. Her work has been shown in NYC, Los Angeles, Sydney, London, Paris, Vienna, Madrid, Lisbon, São Paulo.

World Premiere: 13.01.2024 at Tanztage Festival, Sophiensaele, Berlin

A production by Ewa Dziarnowska in co-production with Sophiensæle. The 33rd Tanztage Berlin are a production of Sophiensæle. Funded by the Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion and the Capital Cultural Fund (HKF). With the kind support of  Tanzfabrik Berlin e. V., Theaterhaus Berlin Mitte.

Photos by: Bea Borgers, Spyros Rennt. 

Instagram accounts of the team:

@leahmarojevic

@baginski__krzysztof

@jacwarsaw

@nnr.1989

@acida_original

@jette_ca

@suvikemp

@maysirs

@margarita__maximova

@spyressence

#EwaDziarnowska

Website: www.ewadziarnowska.com

The festival “New Baltic Dance” is funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture, the Vilnius City Municipality, the Lithuanian Culture Institute, and the EU.