Idea

By changing imagination, humans change existence

Zygmunt Bauman

In his brilliant analysis of the function of culture in times of liquid modernity, Zygmunt Bauman concludes that the superficial TOLERANCE of OTHERNESS, so prevalent today, “is not enough”. Bauman notes that tolerance – bandied about all the time and everywhere – becomes a tool that makes it easier for us to hide our SENSE OF SUPERIORITY, our AVERSION TO THE OTHER eagerly concealed under the cloak of political correctness. Bauman warns that INDIFFERENCE TO DIVERSITY and ELIMINATION of the subject of OTHERNESS from the public discourse – a phenomenon increasingly visible among intellectuals, artists and politicians – means that our culture loses what should matter most to it: interest in and sensitivity to UNCOMMONNESS. Tolerance ossifies stereotypes, Uncommonness incapacitates them.

Uncommonness is not just the motto of the 6th Dialog-Wrocław Festival. It is, first of all, a perspective from which we would like to view our reality. The productions to be presented during the 6th Dialog-Wrocław Festival show uncommonness as a sphere of freedom, as a source of individualism and independence. It seems to us that presenting such an artistic attitude may be particularly significant in today’s Poland, in which we can observe an increasing polarisation of the public debate.

The difficulties of balancing between ordinariness and uncommonness are analysed by the directors invited to the Dialog-Wrocław Festival. They include artists who through their work have been influencing the aesthetics of modern theatre for years (Romeo Castellucci, Ivo van Hove, Alain Platel or Krystian Lupa), as well as those who are just developing their artistic language and whose productions stem from a lack of consent for the current form of the public debate (Klemm, Marco Layera, Gianina Carbunariu, Oliver Frljić and Piotr Sieklucki). The Festival will be an opportunity to meet directors who, playing with theatrical conventions, look for a form of individual dialogue with the modern world (Krystyna Meissner, Cezary Tomaszewski, Zoltán Balázs or Paola Giannini) as well as those who, going beyond the theatrical convention, try to remove the border between the private and the public, between the artistic and the autobiographical (Emma Dante, Romeo Castellucci or Alain Platel).

Uncommonness means many strands and many directions; uncommonness also means uncertainty, mystery, waiting; uncommonness draws our attention to the fluidity of principles so characteristic of modernity; uncommonness promises a reward for persistent defence of individual freedom and independence; uncommonness rebels against the obligation to comply with social norms. Uncommonness is a journey through commonness seen from a new, different perspective. The perspective that during this year’s Dialog-Wrocław Festival will put in order our understanding of uncommonness will be provided by the Festival.


 Krystyna Meissner

Director of Dialog-Wrocław Festival

Tomasz Kireńczuk

Festival Spokesman