Ku Florencji. Odkrywanie śladów
Towards Florence. The Discovery of Traces. Tadeusz Kantor and the Cricot 2 Theatre Abroad 1968-80

Summary/Abstract: The text recounts the beginnings of the foreign career of the Cricot 2 Theatre and its founder, Tadeusz Kantor. The author recalled the localities of the first tours abroad and the artist’s other performances, together with the persons and festivals that contributed to his growing popularity as well as that of his company in Italy and the United Kingdom. The reader accompanies Kantor on his artistic journeys, starting with International Artists Meetings in Vela Luka (Yugoslavia, 1968) and successive tournées In Italy, France and England (Kurka wodna /The Water Hen/, Rome 1969, Nancy and Paris 1971, Edinburgh1972; Nadobnisie i koczkodany /Beauties and Baboons/, Edinburgh 1973 and Rome and Paris 1974, Umarla klasa /The Dead Class/, Rome 1978) to recollections of the artist’s happenings performed outside Cricot 2, although sometimes involving actors from his company (Szafa / Wardrobe/ after Witkacy’s W malym dworku /In a Small Manor House/, Baden-Baden 1966, a series of happenings shown in Bled in 1969 and recorded in D. Mallow’s film Säcke, Schrank und Schirm, participation at I Atelier International des Recherchés Théâtrales in Dourdan near Paris, 1971). The article makes special mention of Achille Perilli and Richard Demarco, who continued the presentation of the Tadeusz Kantor Theatre, and the exhibitions accompanying the theatre’s performances abroad. The author discussed more extensively the Florence Programme (1979/1980), which led to a new spectacle: Wielopole, Wielopole (premiere in Florence on 23 June 1980), as well as assorted recent art undertakings (exhibitions, publications, symposia), making it possible to take a closer look at the breakthrough in the history of the Cricot 2 Theatre, which, as it later became apparent, inaugurated the last decades of its activity.

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