Joanna
Leśnierowska

Since almost 5 years I am preparing for 2020.
2020 for me and my program and my venue and my team means
the end.
I went through all stages of mourning.
I was shocked and in denial,
I felt (very) angry,
and of course
I spent all my energy in trying to fix it and in bargaining and then
I felt so guilty (very very) of my own incapacity
ended up (very) depressed
And finally,
I arrived to working it through, probably right in time to
have a dream.

I imagined I’m not alone and
Those who I admired, loved, shared all my 16 years in the field with
gathered together coming from all over as family,
assembling and uniting
in doing thinking caring (for each other and for Others) and sharing
time space love and
all this amazing knowledge that has been generated through the decades of
choreographic practice and thinking

I imagined
I believed again
In what we built and exercised so far having deeper sense
And trusting
in what we will decide to build and exercise together having even more meaning
in and for the future
And it felt oh so empowering

I imagined having Hope again
Hope that inspires us into action and
brings the calming understanding that
the end is actually the new beginning.
The transition.
The liminal time and space.

So I called everybody
to not transit alone.
And to sketch a path to follow
And to celebrate and be grateful for
all seeds that has been planted
to grow in all unexpected times and spaces
honoring all that now needs to be resolved to evolve.

And then in one second not only mine but the whole world came to a standstill
And transition became suddenly not only my personal challenge.

And with all the anxiety, confusion and suspension it brought,
we have chosen to accept the invitation
to this particular dance macabre
As world madly improvises beneath our feet
so do we.
And we intent to never stop.

And as much as it feels oh so scary, it is also oh so thrilling

And here we are
Here I am, with you
In the eve of our encounter
Embarking on the journey
Into Unknown.
Feeling like starting an expedition to discover the Brand New World we dreamt about.
The thing is just that
it does not need to be discovered.
In fact, it is already here.
And just needs to be re-build.
brought into the daylight from depth of our dreams as

A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together becomes reality

And
In 2011 I was working on the piece inspired by the paintings of Edward Hopper. For months before (and since) I was exercising looking at the world with a ‘Hopper glasses’ recognizing myself constantly in a middle of his images. One of the practices was also re-creating and thus examining the composition of images with the iconic LEGO figures (that I am in love with since). It was following the belief that to see (understand) the world one needs to first build its model (as only what exists for no other purpose than to be seen, we really look at…).

In the first days of pandemic lock down, I was reading the article from The guardian stating We are all Edward Hopper paintings now.

Then strolling through completely empty Stary Browar shopping mall (what a spooky experience) where since 16 years our studio resides, I bumped into the LEGO shop. The window pane made me smile:

LET’S!