Concert “Ballads and Romances” | Poland
Creators: Horsy, Żurakowska
Text: Adam Mickiewicz, Horsy/Tomasz Wódkiewicz, Ewa Żurakowska
Music: Horsy/Tomasz Wódkiewicz
Costumes, stylizations: Maria Kompf
Vocals: Ewa Żurakowska
Musical arrangements, electronics, electric guitar: Horsy/Tomek Wódkiewicz
Percussion: Michał Bednarz/Bandaż
Electric guitar: Michał Szczepaniec
The concert was created in 2022, as part of the 42nd PPA Festival
Date: August 30, 2025 | Saturday
Time: 9 pm
Place: Glass Hall, Art Factory in Łódź, 3 Tymienieckiego Street
Admission: free
Duration: 45 minutes
Age Restrictions: 16+
Language: Polish
Content Warning: loud sounds and flashing, bright lights
DESCRIPTION OF THE CONCERT
The bloody history of Polish romanticism, based on the ballads of Adam Mickiewicz. Murders, villainy, mermaids. A pact with the devil, revenge, betrayal, madness. All this in a musical performance, which was awarded at the 42nd PPA Festival in Wrocław in 2022.
“Ballads and Romances” is a performative concert, a musical-futuristic show, or a romantic space odyssey. The show is a contemporary look at romanticism as a trend in Polish culture. A concert stunning in sound and visuals, full of energy, trance, bold and rushing like an interplanetary ship.
On stage you will see an opera written by Ewa Żurakowska and Horsy. You will see a combination of folk and electro rock and roll, as a look at contemporary Polish theatre and music culture. Folk Slavic tales and legends, described by Mickiewicz in the 19th century, will sound in an electric concert version, in which nymphs become futuristic goddesses of fate, and a crime committed under the cover of darkness comes to light at the least expected moment. All this is in the hands of the cunning Mephistopheles. The concert captivates and draws in with an atmosphere of mystery, horror and sensuality.
INFORMATION ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Horsy / Tomek Wódkiewicz - musician, performer, producer, constructor of interactive musical robots, animator, whose main features are observing culture from a wide angle and participating in it. Before he became Horsy, in 2013 he founded the band Joy Pop, whose second album was featured as the “album of the week” on Polskie Radio Czwórka. Wódkiewicz has composed music for theatre and performances (he collaborated with Krzysztof Garbaczewski and Ewelina Marciniak, among others) and made his directorial debut “Existenz” at the Polish Theatre in Wrocław. He writes music for commercials and multimedia installations. In 2012 he won the second prize in the International Cage Competition. Under the Bioporty banner he constructs interactive musical robots, presented among others in the IP Studio in Wrocław or at the Open'er Festival. He is also a producer responsible for the creation of such clubs as Warsaw's Cząstki Elementarne and Wrocław's Wyspa Tamka.
Ewa Żurakowska - performer, actress, singer, author of interdisciplinary projects, cultural anthropologist; graduated in cultural studies from the University of Warsaw and the Academy of Theatre Practices “Gardzienice”. She defended her doctorate at the Theatre Academy DAMU in Prague, Czech Republic. Curator of artistic events at the Pałac Gorzanów Foundation. Gained extensive experience in the field of theatre and music. She has made several ethno-musicological journeys in Europe and Asia (Spain, Bulgaria, Serbia, Lapland, Estonia, Tuva, India). From each journey she brings back some essence that has enriched her artistic career, she learned how people use their voices in traditional communities in Tuva, how they use their voices and body language in mountainous areas in Bulgaria, traversing the landscape of Scandinavia, listening to its colours, trying to touch what joik is, a traditional form of singing in Lapland. She transforms these experiences into site-specific performances, often performing in historic spaces such as synagogues, churches, castles, industrial facilities, while simultaneously conducting a dialogue with the space and the audience. She has always been interested and inspired by the so-called anthropological theatre and research on foreign cultures. After traveling in the Balkans, she created with her group in Prague a musical performance “Korjen in the Synagogue” based on traditional songs. She created a series of workshops “Song, the land of the soul”, during which participants listen to the land of living nature, collect experiences among trees and forests, and then explore their own, inner land through voice, breath and movement.
