STREET ARTISTS IN EUROPE - Fondazione Fitzcarraldo

Street Artists in Europe
Although it is possible to argue whether the street actions of Akademia Ruchu were theatre, in
the full sense of the word, the stepping out into the street by The Theatre of the Eighth Day at
the beginning of 80-ties was definitely ‘the street theatre’ (I am omitting here the two actions
organized by this group during The Open Theatre Festival in Wroclaw in 1978 429 ). The actors of
the Eighth Day, however, were aware that the way they started to practice the street theatre is
different from what predominated at the Wroclaw festivals, for example. As the actress of this
group recalled after some years; “Before we began to produce theatre on the streets, the
prevailing model had been referring to Odin, with legends, the exotic, beautiful costumes, a lot
of music, good winning over evil. What we introduced was anti-aesthetic, and as a result of it, a
new fashion. It turned out that it is possible to create theatre on the street, which does something
more than merely bring people a dubious consolation” 430 .
Therefore, the street was for both of companies a hostile and a dangerous place, but at the same
time, a space where one could break away from the ‘ghetto of message’, since one could meet
there people different from the authors of performances, and possibly, people thinking in a
different way. As Tadeusz Janiszewski, an actor of the Eighth Day, recalled, people came to
performances to be strengthened in their conviction that “others are just like them; (…) by
means of a different contact people they could confirm the belief that they were not mad or
potential suicides”. On the street, the actors could not be sure of such confirmation. Thus, the
first emotion they recall from the first performances on the street is fear.
Both of these companies, Akademia Ruchu and the Teatr Ósmego Dnia, were driven out to the
streets by a significant need. They desired, at least for a moment, to conquer the space belonging
to ‘them’, to the authorities of the official culture. They were also driven by something, which
Wojciech Krukowski named “the consciousness of social inspiration of their activity” 431 . In this
sense, the role of theatre in this part of Europe would be closer to the role which was played by
theatre in the South America, according to Krzysztof Wolicki. Both of these theatre companies
have shaped such a perception of the street theatre, that at least in the Polish context, the name
‘street’ until the mid 90-ties meant more or less the same as political, socially involved.
The political aspect of Polish street theatre’s activity was strengthened by the artistic-political
movement of Orange Alternative, led by Waldemar Fydrych (nicknamed Major), which
emerged in the city of Wroclaw in 1987, in the final phase of Martial Law time. Major (1953)
was a graduate of Wroclaw University, departments of History and History of Art. He took his
nickname in the 1970s when he was pretending to be mentally handicapped in order to avoid
compulsory military service after his studies. During one of his sessions with a psychiatrist
Fydrych promoted the doctor to the rank of colonel and made himself a major. “Then, when I
had gone to the psychotherapeutic camp - recalls Fydrych - and lead the military maneuvers
there, I became Major for good” 432 .
Soon after the imposition of Martial Law (December 13 th , 1981) he became bored with the
banality of street riots and returned to surrealist activities which he had begun during so called
“Solidarity carnival” (September 1980-December 1981). His first famous action in 1982 was
painting joyful dwarfs on the walls of several Polish cities. The walls were covered with
429 Cooperation-Liberte d’Expression and Poetry to the Street!
430 E.Wójciak in conversation with Monika Mazurkiewicz. The archive of the author, p. 93.
431 W.Krukowski, The Italian Interview, in: Akademia Ruchu, ed. T.Plata, Warsaw 2003, p. 65.
432 Waldemar Fydrych, Bogdan Dobosz, Hokus-pokus, czyli Pomarańczowa Alternatywa. (Hocus-pocus or Orange
Alternative). Wrocław, Inicjatywa Wydawnicza Aspekt, Wydawnictwo Kret, April 1989, p. 8. All other
quotations marked only with page numbers come from this source.
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