10/06/2024
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Frajda Granda Bzik: A show for the kids who are not always shy and not always brave.
Josephine Scholte (University of Amsterdam)
On Saturday June 8th, I saw Frajda Granda Bzik at the Wrocławski Teatr Lalek during the 7th Review of New Theatre for Children. It was a physical performance with music, dance, movement and figures by the collective Kolekttacz, created by by Paulina GiwerKowalewska, Aniela Kokosza and Agnieszka Dubilewicz. It’s described as a performance about the meeting of bodies, energies and connections. To me it was mainly about wanting to
fit in but also stand out. The production, in a playful way, connected with both kids and adults, and was entertaining and moving at the same time.
Frajda Granda Bzik started with the three performers (Aniela Kokosza, Aneta Jankowska, Gieorgij Grzegorz Puchalski) almost fully covered in white sheets. Only their faces were visible. They started moving it, stretching, trying to see how far they could go. Later on, when the sheets came off, their movement varied between
free, as if individual, improvisations, and more stylized, group dances, constantly playing with some sort of beanbags. Halfway through the play, the performers started to engage with the
audience: young kids and their parents. The kids were invited first to hand the pillow they were sitting on to the performers, and then later to join them on stage. It was moving the way the performers played with the kids and facilitated their engagement. To me that was about being different, measuring yourself up to others, wanting to break free from your parents or the place you come from, but at the same time desperately longing for a safe haven, a hand to hold.
The first part of the show was about feeling safe in the space: getting to know yourself and the people around you, learning about opportunities and testing boundaries, being creative with
the space you are given. And then when the kids were asked to join the performers on stage, I was moved to tears because some kid had to be the first to stand up and follow, and not much
kids dared to, but then one did, and the others followed, encouraged by up-tempo songs and lights. They were just playing and letting go, being in the moment and at the same time
looking at what others were doing, since that’s the way children are learning. The key theme again was reinforced: wanting to be brave and independent, and at the same time also needing
someone to lean on.
The performers kept inviting the kids to step out of their comfortzone but at the same time they respected their boundaries, understanding that each child is their own person. This show
was for the kids who are not always shy, but also not always brave and uninhibited. I found it really touching when one of the mothers was lying flat on her belly, to stroke her son, who wanted to sit on stage but also was a bit scared. So in this moment she didn’t anxiously protect him from anything that might be scary, she just held him through it so that he knew he would not have to do it on his own. When someone feels safe, they have the strength to do the bravest things. At the end, the performers went into the audience and handed the kids who didn’t dare to be on stage the pillows, so they were included as well and not left out for being
not that forward.
The choice to make a performance about this with movements and breathing, instead of words or a round story, worked. The kids didn’t need everything spelled out, instead they seemed to
make meanings through their feelings and play. As an adult, I also was really connecting with or looking at my inner child. This was because I was not told to feel anything, or to see anything in it, I was just invited to open myself to the performance and just let it in, without all the words and nuances and rules, being able to playfully question the grown-up world of giving in to conventions, being serious and needing to know exactly who you are.
