text and direction: Bogna Burska
performed by: Klara Bielawka, Ewelina Żak, Marta Kalinowska, a Polish Sign Language interpreter, and the POLIN Community Choir: Agnieszka Górska, Agnieszka Skiba, Aneta Rajca, Anetta Przybył-Bryńska, Anna Jurkiewicz, Anna Wieczorek, Barbara Baranowska, Barbara Popławska, Barbara Szymanowska, Barbara Walczak, Bogna Różyczka, Dagmara Siwczyk, Dominika Jędrzejczak, Edyta Pawłowska, Elżbieta Balano, Elżbieta Jasińska, Elżbieta Zawada, Ewa Chomicka, Ida Sarnacka, Irena Klein, Irena Wiesiołek, Iwona Goździkowska, Joanna Olejniczak, Joanna Stankiewicz, Justyna Orlińska, Katarzyna Andrejczuk, Katarzyna Makaruk, Kinga Wołoszyn-Kowanda, Magdalena Miśkowicz, Małgorzata Berwid, Małgorzata Czmut, Małgorzata Kozek, Marcjanna Bulik, Mira Poręba, Monika Bujak, Natalia Obrębska, Octavian Milewski, Piotr Głodek, Piotr Woźniakiewicz, Urszula Iwińska, Urszula Strych, Witold Borowik.
POLIN Choir led by:
Ewa Chomicka – curator, coordinator
Sean Palmer – composer, conductor
Jakub Pałys – composer, vocal coach
cinematography and editing (film): Magda Mosiewicz
curator: Hanna Wróblewska
collaboration: Aleksandra Szklarczyk
consultation: Daniel Kotowski
project partner: POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
special thanks: Paulina Celińska, Pola Tyszowiecka
Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, 2018/19
Project realised as part of a grant from the budget of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage.
photographs: Weronika Wysocka
film recording: Artur Prymon, Jonasz Chlebowski
The situation of success appears in Burska’s dramatic works only once, in Bunt Głuchych (2018). The only people who achieve their intended goals are persons with disabilities, non-normative from the point of view of the majority. The protest at Gallaudet University in 1988, which led to the appointment of the first deaf/Deaf university president in history, was preceded by thousands of years of cruel experiments aimed at determining what the world’s first language had been. In Bunt Głuchych, we find more examples of misunderstanding, being lost in translation, broken communication, and complaints that turn into a sense of persecution (…). The partly emancipatory character of the performance is expressed through the actions of the choir, which communicates with the audience in Polish Sign Language. Ewelina Godlewska-Byliniak aptly wrote that: “this is no longer about demonstrating the performative power of sign language, but about incorporating it into the framework of a distinct, alternative artistic language, one that is neither vocal nor gestural-spatial, but a kind of body-voice and body-gesture.”*
excerpt from the text Strangely Practicing All the World’s Imperfections. The Tragi-grotesques of Bogna Burska by Wiktoria Kozioł, catalogue Blood and Sugar. Works 2000–2021, published by Gdańsk City Gallery, Trafostacja Sztuki in Szczecin, and the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, 2021
*Ewelina Godlewska-Byliniak, Polish Theatre Discovers Sign Language, “Dialog”, 2019, no. 3, http://www.dialog-pismo.pl/w-numerach/polski-teatr-odkrywa-jezyk-migowy [accessed: 19 January 2021].
reviews of performances using sign language, including Revolt of the Deaf:
Voice in the Body by Piotr Morawski, Dwutygodnik
https://www.dwutygodnik.com/artykul/8129-glos-w-ciele.html
Polish Theatre Discovers Sign Language by Ewelina Godlewska-Byliniak, Dialog
https://www.dialog-pismo.pl/w-numerach/polski-teatr-odkrywa-jezyk-migowy