Janusz Glowacki, 78

Janusz Glowacki, Polish Playwright of Terror and Dark Humor, Dies at 78
by Neil Genzlinger, The New York Times, August 22, 2017

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Magdalena Abakanowicz, 86

Magdalena Abakanowicz, Sculptor of Brooding Forms, Dies at 86
by William Grimes, The New York Times, April 21, 2017

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Andrzej Wajda, 90

Andrzej Wajda, Towering Auteur of Polish Cinema, Dies at 90
by Michael T. Kaufman, The New York Times, October 9, 2016

Remembering Andrzej Wajda, Unflinching Observer of Modern Poland
by J. Hoberman, The New York Times, October 12, 2016

Marcin Wrona, 42

Marcin Wrona, Polish Film Director, Dies at 42
by The Associated Press, September 20, 2015

Bokaer installation honors women's acts of resistance

Have you read this New York Times article about dance artist Jonah Bokaer's tribute to four little-known women of courage?

Commissioned by the American Jewish Historical Society and curated by Rachel Lithgow (AJHS's executive director and Bokaer's co-researcher), October 7, 1944 is a multimedia installation inspired by the resistance activities of a network of Polish Jewish women, laborers at a munitions factory near Auschwitz and Birkenau. Róża Robota, Estera Wajcblum, Regina Szafirsztajn and Ala Gertner were among the women recruited by the underground to smuggle out small quantities of gunpowder to be used to create grenades and, on the date of Bokaer's title, destroy a crematorium. Just a few weeks before the advancing Soviet army could reach and liberate the camps, the Nazis arrested, tortured and hanged these four women while their fellow workers were forced to watch.

"These women were not remarkable in any way that is known to us," writes Lithgow in her essay for the exhibition's brochure. "They were young women who believed what they were doing was right."

Bokaer's structurally elegant, haunted arrangement of archival documents, fragmented music instruments, blow-ups of sheet music and projected imagery includes two dance films--one made for this project (Four Women), another from 2012 (Study for Occupant) with eerie echoes of his current theme. Both films feature the dancing of Laura Gutierrez, Catherine Miller, Irena Misirlić and Sara Procopio.

The exhibition is small in size, but its inner density invites commitment of time to lengthy videos and documents in plexiglass display cases. These cases stretch along a white table, oddly protected and recessed just far enough from its edge to make a reader bend in an awkward way to read the typed or printed words. To read each document, you end up leaning over a concrete block in front of each case. Each block has a piece of a musical instrument resting on it. A strange experience, as I saw it: You must decide to skim a selection of a document's words, get a general sense of what's there and move on or to tilt yourself just so, hold that pose and read word for word until you're done. With his dancer's sensibility, Bokaer seems to be trying to create discomfort and effort in our bodies as well as our minds. He introduces a sense that learning all there is to know about the gruesome reality of the Holocaust is both important and impossible.

I keep returning to Lithgow's words about this exhibition's heroes. Are they not, in fact, remarkable? In a sense, they most certainly are. But in another sense--her meaning, surely--they were ordinary women and ones whose small but essential contributions have remained largely obscure except to scholars of the Holocaust. Bokaer does not overdramatize this heroism but his work reminds us that anyone of us, at any time, can choose to do the one thing that will make a difference.

October 7, 1944 will be on view in the Popper Gallery at the Jewish Historical Center (home of the American Jewish Historical Society) through December 30. For visitor information, click here.

Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Wislawa Szymborska, 88

Wislawa Szymborska, Nobel-Winning Polish Poet, Dies at 88
by Raymond H. Anderson, The New York Times, February 1, 2012

Music journalism explored at Unsound Festival

Fundacja Tone, the Polish Cultural Institute in New York 

and the Goethe-Institut New York present

UNSOUND FESTIVAL NEW YORK 

Since 2003, Unsound Festival, Poland's most adventurous music festival, has brought a bold and uniquely modern program of music to Kraków. Now, with seven festivals in its native city under their belt (and outpost events further east in cities like Minsk), Unsound is coming west to New York for its first ever North American edition, taking place over the course of ten days starting on Thursday, February 4, 2010.

The hub of the festival’s panel discussions, presentations, and workshops is the Goethe-Institut Wyoming Building. The series of panels and workshops taking place at Unsound Festival New York will be aimed at creating a context of discussion around music and sound cultures. It is an essential, extensive part of the project, and completely free.

Sunday 02/07 (2pm) --  Panel discussion on Music Journalism

What does it mean to write well about music? A panel of working music journalists discusses issues related to the art of music-writing, as well as the changing practice of covering music in an eclectic and diversified world. When so much is available globally, how does one search for the new?

Andy Battaglia and Simon Reynolds lead a discussion with other working writers in the field. Further details on festival website.

The Goethe-Institut Wyoming Building will host other panel discussions, presentations, workshops and screenings in conjunction with Unsound Festival New York. For a complete and updated festival program please visit the Unsound website.

Goethe-Institut Wyoming Building
5 East 3rd Street (at Bowery), Manhattan
Free admission (for all events at the Wyoming Building)
212-439-8700