"We live in a web of rules that shape us, limit us and convince us that we are free, while they push us into a loop. We consume energy just to survive - as if the body only exists as a tool for production. Repetition takes over: days that look the same as the previous ones, gestures that recur, cycles in which we are trapped. True, fatigue sets in, but there is also something that does not go away. Something that resists.

Saying "I'm going to tell a story" is already a political gesture. Because it implies speaking up. It assumes that there is something that needs to be told. Perhaps the story has no beginning or end. Perhaps it consists of fragments, repetitions, sounds. Perhaps the body knows more than the mouth. Perhaps the body is an archive of everything that cannot be spoken.

In this project, the body is a theater for contradictory forces: it obeys and resists, repeats and creates, tires and does not give way. It is a body that lives between what is imposed and what slips away. A political body, yes - but also a poetic body. A body that asks: who is in charge? And perhaps, in the end, the answer is not where we would expect it to be."

The answer is not where we would expect it to be.

SOMETHING IS RESISTING

Direction and choreography: OLGA RORIZ
Music selection: JOÃO RAPOZO and OLGA RORIZ
Soundtrack: JOÃO RAPOZO
Costumes: OLGA RORIZ and GRZEGORZ ŁABUDA
Light direction: MICHAŁ STENZEL
Rhearsal assistant: YONEL CASTILLA SERRANO
Text: DANCERS
Dancers: ANNA MIKULA, DARIA NOWAK, JAKUB MARGOSIAK
Produced by LIVING SPACE THEATRE
Produced by OLGA RORIZ COMPANY
Partner: POLISH DANCE THEATRE IN POZNAN
Co-organizer: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MUSIC AND DANCE, MINISTRY OF CULTURE AND NATIONAL HERITAGE
Executive Producer: JAKUB MARGOSIAK
Project Coordinator: ALICJA SIWIK

Choreography:

Olga Roriz holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Aveiro for services to the arts (2017) and is a member of the Academy of Sciences and the Lisbon Academy of Fine Arts. She received her dance education at the Dance School of the National Theatre of S. Carlos with Ana Ivanova and at the Dance School of the National Conservatory in Lisbon.
In 1976 she joined the Gulbenkian Ballet under the direction of Jorge Salavis, where she remained until 1992 as primaballerina and chief choreographer. In 1992, she became artistic director of the Lisbon Dance Company. In 1995, she founded the Olga Roriz Company, which she continues to lead in her role as choreographer and school director of FOR Dance Theatre. Her repertoire of dance, theater, opera and film includes more than 90 works. She has created performances for Ballet Gulbenkian, Companhia Nacional de Bailado, Ballet Teatro Guaira (Brazil), Ballets de Monte Carlo, Ballet Nacional de España, English National Ballet, American Reportory Ballet, Maggio Danza and Alla Scala. Her work has been presented in major European capitals and in many countries around the world. Olga Roriz has been honored with important national and international awards. Among them are the First Prize in the Osaka-Japan Dance Competition (1988), the Best Choreography Award from Londrina Time-Out magazine (1993), the Almada Prize (2004), the insignia of the Order of Infante D. Henrique - Grand Officer by the President of the Portuguese Republic (2004), the Portuguese Prize (2008), SPA and Milleniumbcp Grand Prize (2008), Latinity Prize (2012), Prize for the Most Influential Woman in Portugal (2016 edition, awarded by EXECUTIVA Magazine), SPA Prize (2018) for Best Choreography with the piece "Síndrome," SMA Prize - awarded by the Municipality of Figueira da Foz (2019), SPA Medal of Honor (2019) and Femina Prize (2023)

Contractors:

Daria Nowak - dancer, performer, movement teacher. Graduate of the one-year Dance Intensive Program at TanzFabrik in Berlin (2015-2016), and the "Dance" major at the University of Social Skills in Poznan (2015). She has collaborated with choreographers such as Arthur Pita, Shai Faran, Marcela Giesche, Idan Yoav, Iar Elezra, Gundula Peuthert, Olga Kebas, Viktor Davydiuk, Krystian Lada. Performer during Marina Abramović's exhibition in Poland The Cleaner / Do Clean (2019). She has participated in festivals in the Polish and international arena: 7th Gdansk Dance Festival, MALTA FESTIVAL, OFF OPERA, Interferencias.

Jakub Margosiak - actor, dancer, director. Graduate of the Acting Department of the L. Solski National Theater School in Krakow and a free student at the Dance Theater Department of the PWST in Bytom. He completed doctoral studies at the Film School in Łódź. He completed the Immersion Course at the Michael Chekhov School in New York, and was a Fulbright scholar to study Mikhail Chekhov's technique in the USA. He participated in the International Summer Program organized by Robert Wilson
at the Watermill Center in New York. He collaborates with Theatre No Theatre in Italy. Founder of Living Space Theatre and creator and performer of LST productions. He has performed in productions created by, among others: K.J. Holmes, Isabelle Schad, Thomas Richards, Robert Wilson, Gustavo Ciriaco, Paulina Almeida, Hege Haagenrud, Iwona Pasinska, Katarzyna Minkowska, Krzysztof Popiolek, Sylwia Hefczyńska-Lewandowska, Jakub Lewandowski and others. He has performed in the USA, China, Italy, Portugal, Bulgaria and Poland, among others.

Anna Mikula - dancer, performer, dance teacher and creator. She graduated
from the State Higher School of Theater in Krakow - Department of Dance Theater, was
a scholarship holder of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, National Institute
of Music and Dance, Erasmus+ program, among others. She actively works as a performer
in dance and theater productions presented internationally,
and also seeks her own aesthetics as a creator of dance and interdisciplinary
performances. As a member of VANDEUTEKOM Collective in the Netherlands (formerly: LAVA
Collective) since 2021, she performs in the group's productions and develops
the company's artistic and educational activities. She co-founded the interdisciplinary ANY
Collective, a duo with guitarist Tamara van Esch, and collaborates with French
dance collective Page 55. She has collaborated with many Polish and foreign artists, collectives, cultural institutions, such as Living Space Theatre, Spaces of Art - Katowice, Dramatic Theater in Walbrzych, Rozbark Dance Theater, choreographer Maciej Kuzminski, Misiconi Company (Netherlands), Jens van Daele Burning Bridges (Netherlands), Central Europe Dance Theatre (Hungary), Transe-en-Danse (Belgium), Stalker Teatro - officine CAOS (Italy), CIE MF (France), and universities - among others.including the Dance Department of the Academy of Music in Katowice and Fontys Dance Arts in Context (Netherlands).

Music: João Rapozo - an interdisciplinary musician from Portugal. He has participated
in audiovisual performances in Portugal, Austria, Bulgaria, Mozambique and Italy. Since 2010, he has been developing a transdisciplinary laboratory at the Olga Roriz Company. He has created soundtracks for her 15 Olga Roriz performances.

Costumes and set design: Grzegorz Łabuda - costume designer, dancer. As a costume designer he has worked with Quantum Theatre in Pittsburgh, BWA Gallery in Katowice, F. Nagy, S. Rybakova, M. Eshelman, S. Tsu. He exhibited his designs at the Prague Quadrennial, and received an honorary award from the Princess of Monaco Foundation in the costume category. Graduate of Carnegie Mellon University in the USA.

PRODUCER:

Living Space Theatre Association was founded in 2016 by graduates of the Academy of Theater Arts in Cracow - Department of Dance Theater in Bytom. As a nomadic theater, it carries out performances in different places and with different artists or collectives. LST's main goal is to produce original performances of dance theater and physical theater, as well as to organize artistic workshops, festivals or exhibitions. They have collaborated with artists and organizations from the USA, China, South Korea, Japan, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands and Bulgaria (presenting performances or organizing workshops). They took part in, among others: Competition for Staging Old Works of Polish Literature "Classics Alive", Polish Dance Network 2019, European Capital of Culture 2019 in Plovdiv, International Festival of Dance Theaters Open Stage, 14th International Gombrowicz Festival, BalletOffFestival, Kontrapunkt Festival, AgitAgueda Festival, T'Danse - Danse et Technologie Festival, Busan International Performing Arts Festival, Vth ITI Dance Symposium and others. Creators of award-winning performances such as "Ferdydurke", "Kaj dzias", "Jesus Maria, Refugee!", "Shapes" and "Q&A The Polish Edition".

COPRODUCER:

Olga Roriz Company is a theater founded in 1995 and directed by choreographer Olga Roriz. The theater is celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2025 and over the years has been a benchmark for the professional and artistic quality of contemporary dance on a national and international level. What characterizes and distinguishes the Olga Roriz Company is that it is an original company, and the works of the theater's founder realized over the past 40 years are characterized by style, originality and the ability to affect the public's imagination. Olga Roriz Company's activities are focused on the production of dance theater performances, pedagogical work (Formation Olga Roriz), organizing residencies for artists
from around the world, and social projects.