B E T W E E N 

Little Warsaw Autumn is turning 15! This is our second important anniversary. It is significant in terms of institutions and festivals. It signals that the festival has become established in the culture of our community and in the public consciousness. Fifteen years is a difficult but beautiful time in the individual development of a human being. And although it is a time of significant individuation—a glimpse of adulthood in a person’s life—when we consider the relationship between today’s children and teenagers with their contemporary environment, paradoxically, words and concepts beginning with “multi,” “inter,” “various” come to mind. Important terms, too, such as together, jointly, collectively. For a 15-year-old, what is individual, theirs, personal, is extremely important. At the same time, close relationships and collective actions are essential: with friends, family, colleagues, teachers, based on attentiveness, partnership, and dialogue. It is important to be rooted in a family and a multigenerational community, given they today’s patchwork-like communities are increasingly diverse in terms of age, language, and culture.

The events featured in the 15th Little Warsaw Autumn, as a continuation of the previous editions, are continuously shaped by the guiding principle of active, personal participation of children and young people in collective creative processes. As part of this year’s Little Warsaw Autumn, we shall focus on the format of p e r f o r m a n c e, which proved to be a form close to the hearts of children and young people last year. This year, we will focus on spatial thinking and smaller events, ranging from concerts to performances. These will be various types of inter-formats: performative concerts, sound performances, concert-vernissages, sound tours, and exhibition-performances with elements of opera. The festival will begin with a performative exhibition and its finale will mark the beginning of the nationwide edition of Space®opera 2.0, which, just like last year, will be dominated by site-specific performances, “dressed” in various ways with sounds and music.

Like a 15-year-old, we will try to find ourselves somewhere in between childhood and adulthood, imagination and the rational world, fantasy and reality, culture and nature, between the modernity of our parents and grandparents and the contemporary world of our peers.

In Sampel, or the sound section of an insect (Warsaw Culture Observatory), we will be transported to a world of non-existent hybrid insects and their sounds, which, however, are very reminiscent of familiar species: ants, butterflies, beetles, crickets, mosquitoes, and flies, and the sounds commonly associated with them.

We will look at how these creatures change under the influence of city life. In Long, Long Ago/Now (Baj Theatre), with the help of friendly “objects,” or “puppets” that make sounds, we will try to find common ground between the world of the youngest (the so-called “little ones”) and oldest residents of Warsaw (their grandmothers and grandfathers). In Family Songs (Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art), we will delve deep into the powerful emotions of the relationships between loved ones: children and parents. We look forward to being carried away by the strong, positive energy unleashed by the music of Artur Zagajewski and the band PIOSENKI. In Spaceropera 2.0 (PASTa, National Museum in Warsaw, Czech Center), we will immerse ourselves in artistic genres that are created between theatre, movement, word, music, and architecture.

We will do all this together during 14 planned events, including one physical and one virtual exhibition. The 15th Little Warsaw Autumn features around 120 artists, co-creators young and old (including around 80 children and “non-artistic” people from various groups and ensembles: the STAYnia Intergenerational Song Club, children from Primary School no. 32 in Warsaw, Tadeusz Baird Music School in Grodzisk Mazowiecki, and Multicultural Artistic Group of the Guliwer Theater). We will hear improvisations and 16 premiere pieces by Artur Zagajewski, Andrei Evdokimov, and Aleksandra Bilińska, but this edition will focus on performance. Featured performers shall include countertenor Michał Sławecki, percussionist Paweł Nowicki, clarinettist Michał Górczyński, accordionist Eneasz Kubit, vocalist and bouzouki player Andrzej Zagajewski, pianist Artur Zagajewski, vocalist and performer Sean Palmer, violinist Anna Kwiatkowska, cellist Dominik Płociński, Agnieszka Mazur on early instruments, Kamil Kruk on saws, performer and accordionist Maja Luxenberg, vocalist and performer Maria Johansson Josephsson from Sweden, and vocalist and performer Justyna Jary.

The “non-musical” fields will be represented by actors and actresses: Jakub Kowalczyk, Krzysztof Kozak, Anna Golc, Anna Stela, Luca Seminara, Andrzej Bocian, as well as visual artists, playwrights, directors, and multimedia artists: Anna Szawiel, Amadeusz Nosal, Joanna Załęska, Zuzanna Bojda, Wojciech Uba. And last but not least: educators and teachers: Monika Szulc, Agnieszka Trepkowska, Katarzyna Karczmarek, Małgorzata Grabska, and Anna Daniszewska.

Join us in the world in between.

Anna Kierkosz
Programme and artistic curator of the 15th Little Warsaw Autumn