A reflection on ROMANCE by Rosalind Holgate Smith

Foto: Bartek Warzecha

I remember you so vividly

and now you are not here

I feel you bigger than ever

your skin

your hands

your touch

Romance is a play about a woman

She is dressed in velvet green

and holds,

neatly wedged 

and pulled close beside her 

a grey mannequin

a stuffed puppet

who she breathes life into, 

talks, walks, flirts 

and argues with

Who is real?

Who is not?

It is a unique play

A Precise

Accurate 

Unpicking of our tendencies towards addiction

That is more collectively relevant than queer

It is about what happens when you hit the bottom

Do you make me fall or do I?

In this dance we are reminded to…

Imagine pleasure

The ability to animate is important

Imagine pleasure, she says to her puppet,

like the dead the sea

To feel so much was never the prize draw

Imagine pleasure

Imagine pleasure

and she goes on

….animating the absence

that you havn’t been able to own

_______________________

Rosalind Holgate Smith is a Dancer, Choreographer and Contact Improviser who is currently investigating touch as an encounter with Otherness within the context of a performance as practice based PhD.
_______________________

»Romance/ Romans«, Natalia Sakowicz, Polen

Regie, Spiel Natalia Sakowicz/ Text Zuzanna Bojda/ Musik Maciej Cempura/ Puppe Olga Ryl-Krystianowska/ Beratung Puppenführung Iza Szostak/ Licht Maciej Iwańczyk/ Englische Übersetzung Adam Chrupczak/ Deutsche Übersetzung Antonina Brühl/ Einspielung Übertitel Katrin Gellrich/ Gefördert von Die Produktion entstand im Rahmen des Stipendiums »Young Poland« des Ministeriums für Kultur, Nationales Erbe und Sport und im Rahmen des Künstlerischen Stipendiums des Marschalls der Woiwodschaft Podlachien/ Unterstützt von Aleksander Zelwerowicz Nationalakademie der Darstellenden Künste Warschau, Abteilung Puppenspielkunst Białystok, Teatr Ochoty Warschau