Artistic residency “Kaleidoscope” by Anna Nowicka | Poland, Germany
Leader: Anna Nowicka
Idea and performance: Anna Nowicka and participants of the artistic residency - Joanna Brzezińska, Marta Bury, Maja Caban, Katarzyna Anna Dominiak, Urszula Parol, Magdalena Paszkiewicz, Magdalena Zatorska
Part I. Artistic residency “Kaleidoscope” - laboratory process
Date: August 25-29, 2025 | Monday - Friday
Time: 10 am - 4 pm
Place: Power Plant, Fuzja - Łódź, 6a Milionowa Street
Duration: 5 days, 5 hours a day
Work plan:
- time: 10 am - 1 pm | warm-up, working on awareness and dreaming
- time: 1 pm - 2 pm | lunch
- time: 2 pm - 4 pm | working on scores and structuring experiments
Age Restrictions: 18+
Residency designed for: dancers, choreographers and people working with movement and movement improvisation
Please bring: comfortable clothes and shoes
Language: residency will be led in Polish and English
Cost: 300 PLN per person
How to apply:
- please send applications to the following address: chorea.warsztaty@gmail.com,
- applications are accepted from Monday to Friday, 10:00-18:00
- applications are accepted until Monday, June 23, 2025, until 6:00 pm
- the application should include a short bio - including experience with improvisation, and a cover letter answering the question "Why would you like to take part in the residency and laboratory process with Anna Nowicka?"
- applications involve participation in the entire residency: in laboratory process - on August 25-29, 2025, and in the work-in-progress performance - on August 30, 2025
Important information:
- the number of participants is limited
- the organizer does not provide accommodation or meals
- it is possible to order lunch, on August 25-29, 2025, at the festival restaurant "NieWinni", for an additional fee
Part II. Artistic residency “Kaleidoscope” - work-in-progress performance
Date: August 30, 2025 | Saturday
Time: 5 pm
Place: Power Plant, Fuzja - Łódź, 6a Milionowa Street
Admission: free
Duration: 40 minutes
Age Restrictions: none
Language: non-verbal
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 Powerhouse in Fuzja - Łódź.
The discussion will be led by Małgorzata Jabłońska.
The discussion will be held in Polish.
DESCRIPTION OF THE RESIDENCY
“Kaleidoscope” is a 5-day artist residency by Anna Nowicka, inviting participants into the process of creation, from the perspective of dreaming practice. How do we move from dream to action? How, starting from what emerges from a fluid experience, do we create a living form? How do we feed this form with curiosity and being “here and now”, so that it transforms, develops and surprises with infinite possibilities? How do we listen and be present, towards the process of molding and transforming, without being afraid to let go of things and let them turn to dust, so that they arise anew, in a new reveal?
The idea for the “Kaleidoscope” residency is rooted in Anna Nowicka's more than 15 years of work with dreams and imagination, in a tradition dating back to more than 800 years. Since 2009, the artist has been exploring this theme in her choreographic and pedagogical practice, in individual and group work, with artistic and non-artistic people, with adults, children and youth. In “Kaleidoscope” participants will work with selected dreams and explore how imaginings affect feelings and emotions, how we experience ourselves and the world around us, how they shape our actions and relationships with other beings.
During the laboratory process, we will translate imaginations into unique dances. We will weave movement scores around inner images. We will look closely at the deeper question they carry. What has set our inner world in motion? What is accessible, possible, but yet unseen? What is the dream trying to tell us, what unknown is it trying to lead us into? How do we recognize the available choice in each moment and feel the causation hidden in every movement / stillness?
In “Kaleidoscope,” we will work using authorial tools that develop body awareness and root presence in physical experience and in being “here and now.” We will experience working with eyes closed, in pairs - by observing and being observed, by listening sensitively and being attentive to ourselves and others. We will improvise and build an “instant composition.” Participants will leave the meeting with many tools for further self practice and with many creative questions. The laboratory work will conclude with an open demonstration.
INFORMATION ABOUT THE LEADER OF THE RESIDENCY
Anna Nowicka - is a Polish choreographer who lives on the Oder River, on the German side of the border. She works with dreams and embodied imagination and translates dream tools into choreographic practice. Anna is a graduate of the Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance (SEAD), with a master's degree in choreography from the Ernst-Busch Theatre Academy / HZT in Berlin, and a master's degree in psychology from the University of Warsaw. She wrote her doctoral dissertation at the Polish Film School in Łódź, on embodied mindfulness as a basis for being present on stage. She is a certified teacher of the Saphire® dreamwork practice “The School of Images” and a PCC coach of the International Coaching Federation. She teaches at the “International Institute for Dreaming and Imagery,” where she also directs the “Dream Your World® Kids” programme.
Anna has received a DAAD award and choreographic scholarships: Foundation for the Study of the German Nation, “Tanzpraxis” and the “Tanzstipendium” of the Berlin Senate. Her solo: “the truth is just a plain picture. said bob.” (2010) was presented at the Polish Dance Platform, the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh and the Polish-Israeli Dance Platform in Tel Aviv. Her performance “Raw Light” (2017) was part of the Polish Dance Network. “This Is The Real Thing” (2018) opened the Polish Dance Platform in 2019 and Tanzmesse in Düsseldorf in 2022. “This Is The Real Thing (VR)” (2023) expands the cinematic aspects of Anna's choreographic practice, translates movement material from “This Is The Real Thing” into virtual reality and explores the visual potential of the original stage performance. In “The Opening” (2023), Anna, Jasmine Guffond and Alexander Pralinski, work live with the audience's dreams, translating them into improvised choreography, music and light composition. Her latest solo, “Uvula,” was commissioned by the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw and is an embodied invitation to create life.
Anna's work is rooted in an ongoing study practice that extends to stage work and teaching practice. Anna regularly teaches and mentors students on programmes: BA and MA at HZT Berlin, Performance Studies at the Berlin Academy of Art and Live Art Forms in Nurymberg.
Financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland, as part of the “Dance” programme, realized by the National Institute of Music and Dance.
