Allen Kuhaski to Deliver Lecture on Polish Theatre and Dance
Allen Kuharski, Ph.D., Professor and Chair of the Department of Theater at Swarthmore College, will deliver a lecture, “The Performance of Jouissance and the Politics of Melancholia: Polish Theater and Dance 1989-2009,” on Wednesday, October 14, at 7 p.m. in Miller Forum, Moyer Hall.Tuesday, October 13, 2009 11:22 AM
The talk, part of the College’s year-long series The Legacy of 1989: Twenty Years in the Post-Communist World, is free and open to the public.
In the 20 years since the end of communist rule in Poland and the subsequent fall of the Berlin Wall, Polish theater and dance have evolved in unexpected ways both domestically and on the world stage. Kuharski will address the joys and discontents of a post-ideological culture and its expression in post-dramatic performance as illustrated by a wide variety of playwrights, directors, and choreographers. The talk will also address the ongoing re-orientation of Polish theater and dance in relationship to post-Soviet Eastern Europe, the European Union (particularly Germany and Austria), and the United States, along with the return of "the Polish question," now expressed in an ongoing crisis in the theatrical representation of national identity.
In addition to his work in the Department of Theater, Kuharski is also co-director of the Semester Abroad Program in Poland. He writes on various aspects of contemporary Polish and American theater, and his articles, reviews, translations, and interviews have been widely published in the U.S., Great Britain, Poland, France, and the Netherlands. He is a co-editor of the sixteen-volume COLLECTED WORKS OF WITOLD GOMBROWICZ being published by Wydawnictwo Literackie in Cracow and is the former Performance Review Editor for THEATRE JOURNAL. He has worked professionally as a stage director, set designer, translator, production dramaturge, and performance curator. His translations of Gombrowicz and Ionesco have been widely performed both nationally and internationally. He has been awarded the Order of Merit for Polish Culture (2002) and the Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz Award from the Polish Chapter of the International Theatre Institute (ITI), an affiliate of UNESCO.
