Love Ritual
show
2022
concept and direction: Daniel Kotowski
screenplay: Daniel Kotowski in cooperation with Alicja Kobielarz
dramaturgy: Alicja Kobielarz
starring: Marta Abramczyk, Daniel Kotowski, Adam Stoyanov
costumes and set design: Daniel Kotowski
consultations: Anka Herbut, Aleksander Prowaliński, Marta Ziółek, Szymon Dobosik
production: Olga Kozińska
sounds: Jakub Buchner
technology: Jakub Buchner, Piotr Szczygielski
venue: Komuna Warszawa
What is your family like?
Are you close?
Do you have any brothers or sisters?
What was your first spoken word?
Favourite childhood memory?
Did your parents read you bedtime stories?
Did you feel understood? Accepted? Loved?
Hearing parents cannot predict that the baby will be born deaf. From the beginning, they experience communication problems with their child. They feel anger, fear, guilt and, finally, they mourn for the loss of a child, as if due to the lack of a common language they could not create a bond with the child. They are often not prepared for different form of communication that sign language allows. They try to cure the child’s deafness in the hope that the child will be “normal” or adapt to the hearing, creating the semblance of normality. They imagine that a child, growing up without knowledge of the Polish language and the ability to speak phonically, will not be a complete person. For the Polish state, a deaf person is also not a complete person, not a complete member of society. They are silent foreigners living in Poland. They have their own language, culture, community, which remain invisible and incomprehensible to the majority. 90% of deaf children have hearing parents, which means that 90% of deaf children experience difficulties communicating with their loved ones. I’m Daniel, the director of this play, and I also belong to this group. The “Love Ritual” is a story about magic that gives voice and strengthens the feeling of togetherness.
We want to be loud about our experiences.
We want to be loud about our relationships.
We want to be loud about our language, about the way we communicate, and about our community.
We want to be loud about our love.
première: 09/07/2022
Realised as part of the “Tough Love/Twarda miłość” residency programme organised by Komuna Warszawa
photo credit Juliana Moska
