The water is very cold, but I can’t stay on the shore

The water is very cold, but I cannot stay on the shore
premiere
20 June 2021, at 5 pm

“It’s approaching midday. On my smartphone screen I follow the route of the delivery man who will leave my food at my door. I can see where he is, I can see how he turned the wrong street, I can see how he waits at the traffic lights. The delivery man is a moving dot on the map.
I wonder how often the dot disappears. Somewhere in the middle of the road, an emergency, someone ran a red. My food doesn’t arrive, the dot disappears, the app returns my money and sends me an email apologising for the situation. Or maybe in place of the dot signed Ivan the same dot will appear with the signature Mykhailo.
The doorbell rings. The food is waiting at the door. I don’t even see Ivan or Mykhailo. He disappears before I can open the door.
He is just a dot, nothing more.”

Violence can be blatant, loud and visible to the naked eye. But it can also be transparent – present in language, hidden in everyday behaviour, reactions or comments. How to spot it? Often so deeply rooted that it is difficult to bring it to light and – it would seem – impossible to name and fight?
Over the past months, in a group of artists from different cultural backgrounds, we have been looking closely at the different forms of violence in our biographies, from the smallest symptoms to those that define our identity and our place in society and the world. We drew a line from our memories of school times, through stories of migration, war, oppression, to our personal everyday experiences of encountering violence, discrimination, exclusion. We reflected on possible forms of noticing, signalling, responding and publicising. On 20 June 2021 – World Refugee Day – we invited you to continue this conversation with us during an interactive performance-walk Water is very cold, but I can’t stay on the shore.

Creators:
Valeriya Baradulina, Agnieszka Bąk, Ivanka Berchak, Lizaveta Bibikava, Alejandra Castelblanco, Dorian Czapla, Ludmiła Dąbrowska, Olha Derlicka, Magda Derrien, Marlena Dudzic, Jacek Filc, Katarzyna Galon, Beata Godlewska, Rita Guretskaya, Barbara Herman, Viera Hres, Kamil Hyszka, Mahina Isaeva, Karolina Kaczorek, Volha Kalakoltsava, Marika Kamler, Bogumiła Karbowiak, Kendall Kartaly, Olha Klochko, Oksana Kolisnyk, Wiktoria Konwent, Paulina Kowalska, Alina Kręcisz, Oksana Kuzhel, Veranika Los, Pavlo Luhovyi, Weronika Madejska, Varya Magomedova, Olesya Malyugina, Dorota Markiewicz, Ián Abel Castillo Martínez, Emilia Pijanowska, Piotr Podworski, Ina Sazon, Bazhena Shamovich, Polina Sivets, Viktor Troyan, Hanna Trubicka, Lena Tschauder, Катерина Твардовська, Ada Tymińska, Iryna Sylinnyk, Magdalena Wojno, Anna Zalevska, Alicja Borkowska, Joanna Mueller, Katarzyna Stefanowicz, Artur Pałyga, Ray Dickaty
Production: Magdalena Duszyńska-Sasin
Promotion: Weronika Chinowska

Spektakl został zrealizowany w ramach warsztatów Azyl Warszawa, które są częścią projektu Usłysz Reaguj, finansowanego ze środków programu Aktywni Obywatele – Fundusz Krajowy finansowanego z Mechanizmu Finansowego Europejskiego Obszaru Gospodarczego.