Dance performance “Ich heiße Frau Troffea” (“My Name is Mrs. Troffea”) | Belarus, Poland
Creators: Sergey Shabohin, Igor Shugaleev
Idea and direction: Sergey Shabohin
Idea and performance: Igor Shugaleev
Choreography: Agnieszka Kryst
Music: Mikita Bubashkin & GRAY MANDORLA STUDIO
Visuals: Aleksandra Kononchenko
Light, sound, video: Tomasz Jóźwin
Subtitles (BY): Yania Arlova
Subtitles (PL): Maria Pushkina
Subtitles (ENG): Sara Tokina
Producer: Marina Dashuk
Production: KALEKTAR / marinadashuk.art
Co-production: Nowy Teatr in Warsaw
Partners: JunОst in Bayern
Performance created as part of Artistic Residences of the Theatre Institute | Ukraine-Belarus
Premiere: 15.12.2022, Nowy Teatr in Warsaw
Date: August 24, 2025 | Sunday
Time: 5 pm
Place: Room A_22, Art Factory in Łódź, 3 Tymienieckiego Street
Tickets: 40 PLN - early bird / 50 PLN - reduced / 70 PLN - regular
Ticket sales: kicket.com portal / online payment
Early bird tickets: on sale until July 13, 2025
Regular and reduced tickets: on sale from July 14, 2025
Duration: 40 minutes
Age Restrictions: 16+
Language: performance in Belarusian, with Polish, English and Belarusian subtitles
Content Warning: flashing lights of high intensity are used in the performance
After the performance, around 6:30 pm, we invite the viewers to a meeting and discussion with the artists.
The discussion will take place in the Foyer of the Art Factory in Łódź.
The discussion will be led by Tomasz Domagała.
The discussion will be held in Polish.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PERFORMANCE
A week before the Mary Magdalene Festival in 1518, Mrs. Troffea left her house through the courtyard and, unexpectedly, began to dance frantically in one of the narrow Strasbourg streets. She danced all day and late into the evening, and even all night long. On the third day of this crazy dancing, she was at the stage of extreme exhaustion, shoes soaked in blood, but she could not stop. Finally, her contagious dance swept through the city, causing a dance epidemic that claimed many victims.
Diving into Mrs. Troffea’s story, the performer talks about his own experience of traumatic obsession and relentless search for freedom that seems painful and fatal. Through the shock caused by separation from his home and his past, absorbed by his forced emigration from Belarus and the search for himself, he dissolves completely in the attractive Berlin rave culture. The magnetism of techno brings in the external and internal transformation of the party-goer: the new freedom of communication and movement he experiences under significant doping-driven stress. Speeding up, the performer loses and regains the quality of movement, observes bodily reactions, captures critical heartbeat indicators. This action, both physiological and poetic, reveals various artistic dimensions. Through intense body ceremony, a story of an entire country's disease and the obsessive search for the cure of freedom is told.
INFORMATION ABOUT THE ARTISTS
KALEKTAR - a research platform, concerning contemporary Belarusian art.
Sergey Shabohin - artist, art curator, director. Since 2015, co-founder and editor-in-chief of KALEKTAR.org - the Belarusian contemporary art research platform. From 2010 to 2014, founder and editor-in-chief of ArtAktivist.org - the portal on Belarusian contemporary art and activism. Born in Novopolotsk (Belarus). Since 2016 he has been living and working in Poland.
Igor Shugaleev - independent actor and performer. Graduate of the Belarusian State University of Culture and Arts. In addition to working with institutions such as Belarus Free Theatre (London) and Nowy Teatr (Warsaw), since 2019 he is working on solo and collaborative projects with artists from different art fields. In search of his own artistic language, he moves on the borderline between dance, theatre and performance. Igor Shugaleev was born in Gomel (Belarus). Since 2021 he has been living and working in exile in Poland.
