MOTHERSUCKERS

Anna Wańtuch choreographer, dancer, performer, and certified teacher of the Contakids method.

She completed the Sherborne Development Movement course (1st degree), PINK Training Segni Mossi and Instructor Qualification Course with a specialization in Contemporary Dance. 

A graduate of master degree in philosophy and film studies at the Jagiellonian University in Cracov. 

From 2009–2011 she was a dancer of the Cracovia Danza Court Ballet, and from 2003–2014 soloist of the Dance Theater DF in Cracov.

Scholarship holder of the Alternative Dance Academy 2018 and 2019, implemented by Art Stations Foundation by Grażyna Kulczyk. A resident of Dance Moves Cities, an international project co-implemented by Krakow Theater Reminiscences. Participant of Dramaturgic Forum with Christine de Smedt, organized by the Institute of Music and Dance. She was qualified for the ATLAS choreographic program at the ImPulsTanz Festival in 2021 in Vienna, where she started working on the performance "Mothersuckers: Production about reproduction ". Scholarship holder of Polish Culture on the World of the Institute of Adam Mickiewicz. Resident of Residance 2022 in Bratislava organized by the PLAST organization at Dance Residential Center Telocvičňa.

Together with Maria Kwiecień, she co-authored an interactive performance for one viewer "Words do dance" and is the author of a series of video performances "MOT / HER KC", in which observed the bodily changes during pregnancy. The latter work was presented at the Festival Parallel in Vienna, at the Cracow Art Week KRAKERS festival and many others.

Participant of the Grand ReUnion project, under which she took part in an online performance "Tender Hotel" (initiative: Rivca Rubin) and virtual sound installation "SomaPark" (authors: Joanna Leśnierowska and Patryk Lichota).

Since 2012, he has been experimenting with the movement of an adult with a child as part of performances Postnatal Project. In 2015, she took part with her family in the Warsaw version of Familly Affair of the ZimmerFrei group. As part of the Creative Scholarship of the City of Krakow, she worked on an original format of choreographic performance with the participation of families with young children (premiere: December 12, 2020), which was then presented as part of the 23rd Biennale of Art for Children in Poznan. Thanks to the cooperation with the Performat Foundation, the project also appeared in the program "Stage for Dance" of the National Institute of Music and Dance.

 

PROJECT:

Visible processes of work in the arts therefore become interesting when they disclose the hegemony of the difference between art and life and open up ways for representations and imagery of contemporary exploitation. In this, it is extremely important to make visible the exploitation within one’s own methods of production – to work in a way that makes the production conditions visible. - Bojana Kunst: Artist at work. Proximity of art And capitalism

Mothersuckers. Production about reproduction

The performance is a continuation of personal research on motherhood, its physicality, movement/stillness, and socio-political themes. The leading theme around which the author re / produces meanings/contexts/stereotypes and expectations is breastfeeding. The starting point is a play on words resulting from the combination of the term mother and the act of suckling.

The performer uses mainstream meanings available on the Internet, she looks at the results with the greatest reach and confronts them with the least obvious, but closest to the literal meaning, i.e. feeding the child. By reproducing the produced meanings, passing them through her body and voice, she tries to embody knowledge coming from very different sources: the Internet, a dictionary, Internet users 'comments, her previous works, scientific articles, reflections of social researchers, artists' statements, Isadora Duncan's memories remixed with the heroine of Flashdance, body and phone noises.

The performance looks at the discomfort of the images of the nursing mother, but also examines the activity itself, in its physicality and voicing, but without escaping from associations/fears, it discovers taboos related to breastfeeding, such as scandal, disgust, accusations about the sexual dimension or cannibalistic associations. Everything takes place in a scenery that is hidden every day, in the sphere of shame or failure, a house in which chaos reigns, lack of order, excess of stimuli, multitasking, and spoiled food.

Each of the viewers can take their place in relation to this space, but also to the subject, deciding according to their feelings, not necessarily permanently. In this way becoming a co-creator of this chaos adds new tasks to the performer, a new shape of space, showing his acceptance or withdrawal.

In the context of dance and movement, it was also difficult not to escape stereotypes related to motherhood in artistic practise and the feminist question of whether you can be an artist and a mother at the same time, or is the fact of not having children at the same time a denial of our biological nature? Does following our nature prevents us from functioning in "culture"? The performance looks at this questions with humour, showing the absurdity of both approaches.

The work was started as part of the ATLAS choreographic program, at ImpulsTanz Festival in 2021. The process leading to full piece is being developed as part of Residance 2022 in Bratislava, organized by the PLAST organization at Dance Residential Center Telocvičňa.