History
Komuna Warszawa Theater was founded in 1989 as “Komuna Otwock. An Anarchist Community of Action” and continues its mission to create a place open to artistic experimentation and attentive civic engagement.
Komuna Otwock
In Otwock, a town on the outskirts of Warsaw, a group of young friends founded a politically engaged collective that treated art as a tool for social change. Komuna Otwock organized more than a hundred concerts of independent music, dozens of exhibitions at the Miejsce Gallery, which it ran, broadcast on the pirate radio station Radio Czosnek, and engaged in preparing ecological demonstrations.
In 1994-97 the Komuna Otwock rented a former school building in the village of Ponurzyca, where it created a place for ecological education, a tourist base and a creative space for the Komuna community.
During this time (also thanks to the hospitality of the Center for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle) the group’s most important performances were created: “Untitled” (1997), ‘One Must Kill the First God’ (2000), ‘Design/Gropius’ (2002), ‘Perechodnik/Bauman’ (2003), ‘The Future of the World’ (2006). They have been successfully presented at major festivals in Poland and abroad (including Krakow Theater Reminiscences, Malta in Poznan, HAU Berlin, Munich, Paris).
Lubelska 30/32
In 2007 Komuna Otwock moved to Warsaw – for a year the headquarters of the Theater were halls in the former VIS Plant in Warsaw’s Wola district, and then spaces in the Lubelska 30/32 Art Tenement House in Praga district. The group is opening up to cooperation with Warsaw’s performing arts communities. The “RE//MIX” series (curated by Tomasz Plata), conducted in 2010-14, included nearly a dozen performances dedicated to the most important historical works of the performing arts. Artists of different generations invited by Komuna prepared remixes of works by Pina Bausch, Robert Wilson, Yvonne Rainer, The Wooster Group, John Cage, among others.
The cycle described in the book “RE//MIX” (published by Krytyka Polityczna) turned out to be a turning point for the emergence of the contemporary performance scene and an opportunity for a new generation of female and male artists, with whom Komuna continues to work to this day (including Marta Ziółek, Ramona Nagabczyńska, Weronika Pelczyńska, Marysia Stokłosa, Paweł Sakowicz, Iza Szostak, Katarzyna Sikora), to enter the stage.
A continuation of this program line was the “MicroTheater” series (curated by Tomasz Plata), which was very well received by the public. The invited artists created short theatrical forms bound by the same rigor of rules: 16 minutes, 4 spotlights, 1 microphone, 4 creative people, budget of PLN 4000. “Micro-theater” was created by, among others: Anna Smolar, Marcin Liber, Anna Karasińska, Michał Borczuch, Agnieszka Jakimiak, Weronika Szczawińska, Gosia Wdowik, Wojtek Ziemilski.
At the same time, the group developed their own theatrical program (performances directed by Grzegorz Laszuk: “Mill/Maslow”, ‘Paradise Now?’, ‘BRIN project’). Finally, they initiated a production house program, innovative in Polish conditions, within the framework of which performances were realized here: Marta Ziolek (“Do Yourself,” 2016), Cezary Tomaszewski, (“Cezary Goes to War,” 2017), Agnieszka Smoczynska (“Holy Noodle,” 2018), Weronika Szczawińska (“Talking about Trees,” 2019).
Emilii Plater 31
Since 2009, the group has been creating and operating under the name Komuna Warszawa, then in 2019 it changed its name to Komuna Warszawa Theater and, thanks to cooperation with the City of Warsaw, works under the formula of a social cultural institution – an innovative form of independent production house, presentation stage and residency center. In 2020, the theater moved to its headquarters in a former elementary school building on Emilia Plater Street. It continues its mission to support the performing arts, relying on its long-standing experience, the trust of the artistic community and institutional partners.