Mission

Theatre lessons are the proposition for high school and university students. Our mission is to create a safe space for a meeting, dialogue, and common search. We want to experience and talk about theatre together. We are guided by the ideas of emancipatory pedagogy, equality and openness. We are constantly looking for an appropriate form of teaching, implementing the school program within an open and casual meeting. We want to ask questions, together with the students, no matter if there are specific answers to them. The need for this comes from a belief that learning is a synonym of experience, enthusiasm, curiosity, raising, and bravery. 

Teaching and experience

We combine theory with real experience. It’s difficult to talk about theatre without authentic experience of performance. Students can choose to watch one out of three plays: Population Density, Possible Worlds, Touch-Me-Not. After the play, students have the opportunity to participate in a theatre lesson included in the ticket price. Simultaneously, we’re implementing aims of school education. We prepared two scripts of the lessons which can be downloaded at the bottom of the page.  After Population Density and Possible Worlds, director Krzysztof Popiołek discusses directing, symbols, and theatrical experiences. After Touch-Me-Not, students meet Bibianna Chimiak, actress and creator of the play, in the first part of the lesson, and Wiktoria Chojnacka, our employee and PhD candidate in literary studies, in the second part, who discusses the topic: From the Origins of Theatre to Postdrama.

Cocreating vision
 
We want to listen, share experience, form theatre lessons together with students. That is why, we try to be in a constant conversation with the audience. We are intrigued by suggestions and perception of students. 

Important info

• Price of the ticket for the students is PLN 25. Teachers obtain an invitation
• We can fit 60 people
• The coordinator of the project is Wiktoria Chojnacka, e-mail contact: wiktoria@teatrkana.pl
• During Touch-Me-Not we use strobe light
• Lessons scripts available to download at the bottom of the page

Cocreators:

Krzysztof Popiołek – a graduate of the Ludwik Solski State Drama School in Krakow; director, curator of the project New Forms of Theatre, and lecturer at the Department of New Media Arts at the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology in Warsaw. From 2014 to 2016, he was a research assistant at the Krakow Theatre School. He has directed at theatres such as the Jewish Theatre in Warsaw, the Ludowy Theatre in Krakow, the J. Słowacki Theatre in Krakow, the Dramatyczny Theatre in Wałbrzych, the S. Jaracz Theatre in Olsztyn, the Daugavpils Theatre in Latvia, the Polish Theatre in Bielsko-Biała, and the Kana Theatre in Szczecin.

Wiktoria Chojnacka – our employee, a PhD candidate in literary studies at the University of Szczecin. She studied textual culture and practice, creative writing and editing, and the anthropology of theatre and film literature at the University of Wrocław. Her interests revolve around issues related to performance studies, ecopoetics, vegetarianism, and the Symbiocene.

Bibianna Chimiak – an actress, vocalist, theatre instructor, and art therapy trainer. She’s a part of the Kana Theatre acting team since 1999. At the theatre, she specializes in organizing artistic projects. She is a vocalist and lyricist for the musical group Bibikings. Together with the group, she has won numerous awards at festivals in Poland and abroad, and was honored with the Artistic Award of the City of Szczecin for significant artistic achievements in 2021. She is a scholarship holder of the City of Szczecin. She graduated from the University of Szczecin with a degree in Philosophy (specializing in ethics and human philosophy), completed postgraduate studies in Music Therapy at the University of Zielona Góra, and completed a Master's Degree in Solo Singing at the State School of Music in Szczecin under Professor Iwona Górewicz. She leads theatre and art therapy workshops in Poland and abroad.

Theatre workshops

In this workshop, young people have the opportunity to get to know the art of theater through active elements. They will be sensitized to what theater is and can be. They will be given tools that enable them to explore their own experiences through theater but also to start their own theater practice. In exercises within the group as well as individual and partner exercises, the participants get to know  themselves as theater people and also form a group within the framework of the workshop. They will be given an idea of how they can continue to work with the tools they have learned. The workshops bring an active experience to the gr oup that is challenging but thoughtful and gives each participant the opportunity to get to know the creative tools of their own and of the group.

Malik Meyer

In years of diverse and intensive work and research, as well as in collaboration with theaters, institutions and international artists in Germany, Poland, Palestine, Latvia and Estonia, he explores and designs meeting points between performing arts and forms of dialogue. As a theater maker, he works as a director for performative works and leads and conceptualizes original workshops and projects with various cooperation partners and participants. As an actor and performer he works in the fields of film, text and physical theater.