Maria Shevtsova Welcome, everybody. It’s Their most recent Project, Horizons (2007–09),
wonderful to see you. As you all know, 2009 will is supported by the City of Wroclaw and is hosted
be the Year of Grotowski. It will mark the tenth by the Grotowski Institute in Wroclaw. We were
anniversary of Grotowski’s death, and also the talking this afternoon about the difficulties of
twenty-fifth anniversary of the end of the Labora- constantly being on the road with your work, and
tory Theatre. But Mario and I were talking on the perhaps we will have a chance to ask you some
telephone a while back, and we decided that we questions about your travels.
would go ahead and do it early, that we would We have here two remarkable people, who are
mark – not the death of Grotowski, actually, but the last people to have been very close collabo-
his life. I think of this as being a celebration of the rators of Grotowski. We have, in a sense, another
fact that his work is alive and, of course, its living kind of living Grotowski presence embodied in
quality can be celebrated at any time. There will these two people present tonight. Thank you so
be many major events in 2009, notably in Wroc- much for coming. It is thrilling to have you here.
law, where the Laboratory Theatre moved from Now, I think I would like to start with a ques-
Opole in 1965. tion to you both that most people who write about
It is such an honour and pleasure to have you you seem not to ask – maybe because they feel shy
with us, Thomas Richards and Mario Biagini. about it, but I don’t think we need to feel shy in
Thomas is the Artistic Director of the Workcenter this context. You worked for thirteen years with
of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards in Grotowski, from 1986, when he moved to Ponte-
Pontedera in Italy, and Mario is its Associate dera, until his death in 1999. This afternoon, as
Director. They have done a tremendous amount we were talking, Mario, you said something that
together, with their team, in the Workcenter and struck a chord. I thought ‘Ah! That plays beauti-
have travelled a great deal, particularly in the fully into my first question.’ You said, ‘We spent
past five years or so, following their various thirteen years with one of the most intelligent
Projects through in different parts of the world. people on earth at that time.’ What was it like to
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side the doer, which is, we could say, related thing like a very subtle rain can come to you
to a kind of inner core. The doer can discover and penetrate you. This experience – a trans-
that, in fact, there are different kinds of places parency of perception – can be so strong and
hidden inside, which are like pools of differ- so alive and life-giving that it brings joy, and
ent qualities of energy that can be awakened. it’s like, ‘Ah, I want to do that again, I want
The resonance of the song touches these to live that again and again.’
places, inviting them to be free, to be open. It’s something that one can work on con-
There is a place related to our sensual sciously. One’s perception in life, what you
energy, another related to our vitality, an- perceive in a given moment, can be more
other resource related to our emotional life, than the result of your circumstances, more
and another to our mental life. It’s as if one than a result of pressures that come from
can discover all of these places to be like outside. One’s fears of what is around, for
open doors, one facing another. And then, example, often shape perception. I am speak-
it’s as if a delicate waterfall that’s going up, ing to you and I can start to think, ‘What is
like travelling back to a source, can appear. this woman thinking of me?’ And I can
You can arrive at a feeling of transcendence, become completely busy with that, and my
of going beyond the heaviness of your perception reduces to that. Our inner life is
nature, touching a subtle source that seems often in the hands of circumstances, which is
to be above your physical frame, and some- what makes us a victim of our surroundings.
thing between you and the moment can start When one takes oneself and arrives at a kind
to shine. And from this subtle source some- of plenitude in the moment, one can feel,
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craft, and yet, one key to my craft – to let the imperceptibly.) This small adjustment can have
moment live, is my partner – to be with him. an enormous effect on the quality of our con-
(He points to Biagini.) If he’s singing and I’m nection, and one needs always to reawaken
trying to sing and accompany him in this in oneself the question, ‘Where does he need
process – the inner action – the difference me? Does he need me here or here?’ And
between being here and being here is enor- with simple and continuous attention on him
mous. (He changes place in the space, almost everything can begin to flow: this sort of
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Biagini Maria is asking you if these Eastern Richards We are approaching an answer to
practices – she understands yoga as an Maria’s question because she asked about
Eastern practice – help the work? the ‘inner action’ and physical action. They
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Photos:
Magda Zlotowska.
question of how my body, in fact, lets itself be, contraction here (tightens his shoulders), and
as if seen by the space, or by those around me. this frozen solidity blocks the resonance
It’s amazing to see the people who come into from passing down into the body. And it’s
the work and how difficult it is for them to not enough to say to somebody, ‘OK,
get out of this (cups his hand in an artificial decontract.’ It just comes back.
way) – and the hand is like this, almost all the So, we have many habits, inner habits,
time. You ask the person to stand consciously coming from the way we relate to others and
and sing in relation to a partner, and to let the world, which lead to the crystallization
this unnecessary contraction go (looks at his of physical habits. So you need to look at the
hand which is now neither contracted nor relaxed), person and to see, really, how the person is
and for a moment all is well; and then, after relating with the world, how the person is, in
some seconds, this again (contraction of hand). some way, hiding something special in him-
Or the person has an enormous, unnecessary self from the world. And also, in some way,
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the doing. I’m interested in whether Grotowski they were engaged in. That is what Grotow-
talked to you about the difference. I wonder if ski was referring to when he said – he speaks
you’ve ever had dialogue about this process of the of it in ‘From the Theatre Company to Art as
knowledge, the gnosis, that you carry in you in Vehicle’ – ‘When the inner core team had
relation to the future of the work, which is so passed through a fearless . . .’
different from how the paratheatre links to the last
Richards ‘Intrepid.’
part of this work.
Biagini Yes, ‘intrepid period of closed
Biagini Have you ever met Grotowski? work’, and when there were little numbers of
participants, something at the limit of the
Audience Member: Yes. miracle would happen. So, there is a hint of
what he meant: ‘intrepid’ and ‘work’.
Biagini When we met him – Thomas actu- What you say about embodied knowledge
ally began work with him in 1985, I began in – I remember Grotowski speaking about how
1986 – he really looked as if he embodied you can . . . You know, you might say to
something. The most important things were Grotowski, ‘Yeah, this person in the work, he
not conveyed by verbalization, but by a look. doesn’t get it.’ Like referring to the difficul-
The paratheatre work – I think we must re- ties that Thomas was describing before, for
member that there were many, many aspects example, when someone is blocked by some
of it and many teams at work. Certain mem- habit. Grotowski would say, ‘You should just
bers of some teams surely had developed show the person another way, don’t speak
a knowledge related to the precise practice about it. Just you do it in another way.’
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