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Good Girl Killer

 

GGK -a contemporary dance, music and video performance. The aesthetics of the piece can be defined as our personal and negotiated in a collective take on the popular culture's dustbin. The movement in the piece has been inspired by the automatism, the techniques of ecstasy, a sense of humor and irony, punk and disco. The musical collage recalls the past using recordings from the artists' archives, entertains with circus sentimentality, attacks and annoys with city noise and hardcore electronics, and provokes to tears and laughter with live performances of songs accompanied by a guitar and a bass. The video projections use the symbolism of the Cosmos and the cityscape, being on the road, technology and human creativity – both, positive and negative.

The collective hero of the GGK is a human being from the city, surrounded by a global network of information, looking with trust into the Cosmos and simultaneously frightened by it. She/He cherishes a sense of humor and self-directed irony trying to find His/Her individual language and gestures. The identity of these persons is defined by the symbolism of pop culture, by their personal and collective histories, by their aesthetic and spiritual aspirations.

Paying tribute to the magnetic cassette GGK does not fight with nothing else but with our own imaginary claims to a spiritual and cultural essence or cleanliness. The cassette and its demise is for us a symbol of transitionality. As the citizens of the postmodern World we openly and wholeheartedly accept the fact that all kinds of essentialisms are inherently unstable and impermanent or, to paraphrase Peter Sellars, that we are all refugees. He said: "let us open ourselves to refugees because we're all refugees, and until you notice how you yourself are a refugee, you are clueless about your life, what are you running from, what were you rejected from, how has that formed you. And then how many ways have you had to reimagine home across your life, for yourself and for people you care about." The metaphor of the tape and the characters’ travels in space and time reflect our hybrid identities. We are mental citizens of the World and cross borders knowing of fear of loosing our personal homeland. We admit that we are looking for gestures and feelings which would allow us to preserve a sense of continuity and at the same time would help us cultivate "everything around you because you don't know where the next excellence or surprise will ever come from" (Sellars) in order to remain truthful to our transitional reality. It's lots of fun.

The generation of the magnetic cassette is not devoid of higher feelings. We have simply come to know the taste of crossing the borders. We share a sense of partnership in departures and returns. This is why the performance walks a fine line between banality, nostalgia and ecstatic experience. This is why we use the aesthetics of cut and paste, and the symbolism of pop art: while the city screams in the background the circus turns into trance, the Cosmos touches the street and bounced off it like off a spring-board of the magnetic tape it takes away and erases all evil on Earth. In this sense all of the characters and the audience are redeemed. The cosmic, religious as well as the automatic aspect of the piece is reflected in the oft presence of rotation and the cross. The cassette is the symbol of unification and duality: there's always someone else doing something differently so that we can do it our way. This is the meaning of the song in the finale of the piece: "many people and few gestures" (Milan Kundera).

GGK tries to befriend technology. Our knowledge about the equipment that we use is very limited. We us it as vehicles of memory. Although we have been living all our lives in the world of the cassette we are still very similar to our ancestors – we have our hopes, dreams and fears. Growing up we did not inquire about the nature of the equipment we used. Without inhibitions we accepted the simplicity and usefulness of the technological novelties like the children of today use computers and the Internet. On stage we gather together and, armed with our 1983 tape recorder and other "shaman's" objects, take our uninhibited lowrider cosmic voyage to the land of memory because we need to know where we are coming from in order to create inspiring and aesthetically bold statements to make the present more comprehensive.

Grzegorz Welizarowicz

Choreography: Magda Jędra, Anna Steller
Music and samples:
Zbigniew "Zibi" Bieńkowski, Grzegorz Welizarowicz
Visuals:
Jaroslaw "Max" Szwoch
Costumes:
Tomasz Bergman Lewandowski
Lights designer:
Bartosz Cybowski
Performed by:
Magda Jędra, Anna Steller, Zbigniew "Zibi" Bieńkowski,
Grzegorz Welizarowicz

Duration of the show: 55 min.

 

 

Reviews:

"The original idea of Good Girl Killer was to record without restrains gestures, conversations, experiences, encounters and situations, while the magnetic cassette would become a metaphor of the human body and mind. This was perfectly illustrated by a scene in which Anna Steller and Magda Jędra drew circles with their own bodies as if they were the spools of a cassette. The performance struck viewers with a multiplicity of motives and happenings and this is why the show was close to the viewers' experiences."

Katarzyna Stech, Gazeta Wyborcza, Trójmiasto

 

"Four performers create on stage very distinct universe. The mixture of digital sharpness in the movement, inventive musical creation performed life and socio-historical references opens for the audience the possibility of divers reflections.
Two dancers and two musicians are very well balanced in their presence. GOOD GIRL KILLER carries a tension, which can explode any time. It has a strong multi directional potential underlined with a clear one minded direction"

Martin Kilvady -dancer and choreographer (fragments of recommendation letter)


Good Girl Killer was presented at:
6.03.2005 -
Klub ZAK Gdansk
6.05.2005 -
Klub ZAK Gdansk
10.06.2005 -
Body-Mind Festival in Warsaw
29.06.2005 -
Realisation for Public Television TVP KULTURA
9.07.2005 -
Heineken Open'er Festival in Gdynia
21-22.08.2005 -
International Workshops of contemporary dance in Poznan
26.08.2005 -
Dance Corporation Festival in Gdansk
2.12.2005 -
Centre of Creativity Research Warsaw
20/21.01.2005 -
Off De Bicz, Sopot, Poland

 

Technical requirements:

- stage min. 9mx8m, max. 12mx11m
- white ballet floor
- white horizon
- table 2 m width, x1m height
- Professional PA
- video projector
- 2 cordless microphones
- 1 amp for bass guitar (to be negotiated)
- 1 amp for electric guitar (to be negotiated)
- we play without wings

Lights:
- 16 PC 1000W
- 4 PC 500W
- 2 Profiles 1000W