Performance, 11th June, 7 pm
1) Someday, Maybe, Patsy (Kenia)
Someday, Maybe is a personal performance that combines poetry and storytelling, created from unfinished fragments of my creative work. Pieces of an old blog, half-written poems, abandoned drafts, and ideas I still intend to return to. It is an honest reflection on creating irregularly over time, on creative blocks, giving up on projects, starting again, and carrying unfinished things within oneself for years. Still hoping that one day I will come back to them — maybe.
Patsy works at the intersection of creativity, culture, poetry, storytelling, digital media, and community engagement. She is inspired by history, museums, personal archives, and everyday human experiences. These interests have shaped her exploration of how stories can preserve memory, shape identity, and build connections across cultures and communities. Through writing, vlogging, guiding tours, and collaborative projects, she approaches creativity as both a personal practice and a collective experience. Her work is rooted in curiosity, reflection, and the belief that every story carries its own beauty and significance.
2) Crossdressing/异装, Luxuan Wang (China)
Crossdressing / 异装 juxtaposes a colonial history of disguise with a personal one. In the nineteenth century, Scottish botanist Robert Fortune adopted Chinese clothing in order to enter regions closed to foreigners and obtain tea plants for the British Empire. More than 150 years later, a body arriving from China to Poland also uses clothing as a strategy for entering new social spaces.
The performance explores the tension embedded in the act of disguise: on the one hand as a tool of colonial appropriation, and on the other as a practice of survival, visibility, and self-determination.
Lulu (Luxuan Wang) is a researcher and performer from China who has been based in Poland since 2016. Drawing on personal experiences of migration and identity work, their artistic practice investigates the relationship between individual biography and global histories of colonialism, migration, and power.
They currently work at the State Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw. Lulu co-created the performative reading Straszny Dwór, presented at the Grotowski Institute during the Documentary Theatre Festival. They have also collaborated on the performances Manifest Roślin (Plant Manifesto), Wieloryb (Whale), and Będzie coraz cieplej (It Will Get Warmer) produced by Strefa WolnoSłowa Foundation.
Cooperation: Tomasz Krajewski, Robert Marciniak, Weronika Siemińska
3) save a horse, ride a queer?, sos osowsx (ono/ona/on//they/them)
This performance originated at the exhibition Koń a sprawa Polska (The Horse and the Polish Cause) at Cliche Gallery as a result of a spontaneous collaboration between two artists: sos osowsx and Kimya Ness (two-thirds of the hydrodemons collective).
This work-in-progress presentation continues the development and exploration of that work, idea, concept, and experience.
Through the body, I investigate and reflect on the relationship between horses and humans. Is it possible to ride a horse ethically? Is it possible to use animals for work ethically? Can there be a friendship between humans and animals? What does the horse symbolize, and why? What do horses reveal about us? How have we failed them, and how do we honour them? What do people mean when they say they love animals? What do horses feel when they are used as tools? When does a horse experience joy? When does it experience pleasure? What human needs do we fulfil through our relationships with animals, and why? Do you recognize personhood in a horse? What is the horse-person saying that you do not want to hear?
sos osowsx (they/them) is a choreographer, performer, dancer, dramaturg, and writer. A white trans non-binary artist from Poland, they graduated from the Dance Department of the Academy of Music in Katowice and from Kem School 2023.
Their artistic practice focuses on process, intuition, collectivity, and the search for horizontal modes of artistic collaboration. Pleasure and play are central tools in their creative work.
They are a member of the Polish-Norwegian collective hydrodemons and the choreographer and performer of M4G1C BL0W (Teatr Komuna Warszawa). Their writing has been published in the independent choreography journal Ruchome Teksty.
They have collaborated with, among others, Marta Ziółek, Aga Nowacka, Kimya Ness, Agnieszka Jakimiak, Joan Ceville, Alicja Czyczel, and Ernest Borowski.
Dance
The April edition of the “Work in Progress” series was dedicated to contemporary dance and experimental choreography.
The “Work in Progress” programme is designed to present works in development, with a particular focus on artists with migration experience. The programme is curated by Łukasz Wójcicki.
During the event, three works in progress were presented by Melaniia Konstantinova (Ukraine), Elizaveta Samkova (Belarus), and Marta Czajkowska (Poland).
All three artists live and work in Warsaw.
Following the presentations, the audience was invited to join a conversation with the artists, creating a space for direct exchange and reflection.
Artist's BIO
Elizaveta Samkova is a Belarusian dancer based in Poland. She uses dance and movement as tools for exploring the relationship between the body, emotions, space, and culture, as well as their mutual influence. Improvisation plays a central role in her practice, allowing for a deeper exploration of the body's limitations and possibilities.
Melaniia Konstantinova is an independent dance artist and performer working at the intersection of movement, emotion, and body memory. Her artistic practice focuses on the relationship between the body, space, and emotions, drawing on contemporary dance and butoh techniques to investigate processes of transformation and embodied memory. As an independent artist, she creates original performances and leads movement workshops, grounding her work in attentiveness, improvisation, and collective storytelling.
VoltAge concert
VoltAge is a multicultural trio working at the intersection of electronic music, classical influences, spoken word, and sampling.
The group consists of Altro Volta (accordion), Sonny (decks, electronics), and Lux (voice, texts).
Colpohone
Work in Progress is part of the project “Strefa WolnoSłowa Cultural and Artistic Activity Centre – Kaliska 8/10”, funded by the City of Warsaw (m.st. Warszawa).