Caroline Felkins, Paulina Krzeczkowska and Samantha Harding
Resolution Festival 2024
About Caroline Felkins, Paulina Krzeczkowska and Samantha Harding
Chaconne by Caroline Felkins - chalk.ac
A prayer, death and rebirth, a journey through mourning. Bach's masterful Chaconne, was written in a time of grief, and is experienced here through sound and movement. A violinist and a dancer each bringing their individual voices to a joint exploration of this timeless work.
About The Artist
chalk.ac is an interdisciplinary artist collective that values collaboration and brings fresh perspectives to each other's work.
Caroline is an American dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker currently based in London and Berlin. She holds a BFA in contemporary dance from UNC School of the Arts and has performed works by Shen Wei, Robert Battle, Merce Cunningham, and others. Raphael Papo is a British/Israeli violinist based in London and Berlin. He holds a BM in violin performance from UNC School of the Arts and performs regularly with London orchestras such as the BBCSO, in addition to various chamber groups throughout Europe. Together, they have performed in commissioned works for Ocracoke Festival and several self produced shows in North Carolina and London.
Cast and Credits
Dancer, choreographer and concept: Caroline Felkins
Violinist and concept: Raphael Papo
Woman in the Attic by Paulina Krzeczkowska
The piece, inspired by the romantic tropes of the mad woman, explores gender and the place of femininity in the social and literary contexts. Influenced by the characters of Ophelia from Shakespeare’s Hamlet and of Bertha from Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, it tells a story of a Polish woman, her experiences of female agency, and her desire for self-determination. Woman in the Attic starts with a 'traditional' narrative structure, where the text frames the discourse, only to let it unravel into a visceral journey of self-discovery. Employing spoken word, folk singing, and choreographed physical actions, Krzeczkowska presents an unsettling and at times comical image of femininity.
About The Artist
Paulina Krzeczkowska is a London-based interdisciplinary artist coming from Poland. She works in the intersection of acting and dance, employing contact improvisation, instant composition, and polyphonic singing. She trained as a dancer at TIP in Germany (2018) and completed acting training at RADA in London (2022).
Paulina is a core ensemble member of Flabbergast Theatre Company. She performed in the critically acclaimed production of The Tragedy of Macbeth at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (2022), Southwark Playhouse Theatre in London, and European Shakespeare Festivals Network in Romania, Germany, and Poland (2023). She’s part of the company’s new production of A Midsummer's Night Dream which will be performed at the Wilton’s Music Hall in London in 2024.
Cast and Credits
Deviser and Performer: Paulina Krzeczkowska
Creative Consultant: Krystian Godlewski
Dramaturg: Simona Gonella
Lighting Designer: Amee Smith
Photographer: Krystian Godlewski
Photo Editor: Josa Taylor
Special thanks to Centre 151 and Tramshed Woolwich for being our home for the first stage of development of this project.
Resurrection by Samantha Harding
The dancers are inside your brain. Each of them represents a past version of yourself. You're interrogating yourself about who you used to be, who you want to become, and how you will get there. Your progress is interrupted, triggering a breakdown. You try desperately to stay afloat, but the rug has been pulled out from underneath you and it's hard to navigate in the black hole that is your emotions. Eventually the fog clears, you've gained new perspective. You acknowledge how far you've come and realise that you will actually be ok, no matter what. Then you keep going.
Resurrection is about identity and change. What does it feel like when a major part of your life falls apart? How do you rebuild your sense of self and find new purpose? How do you physicalise that feeling of dread that hits you when you wake up in the morning and remember what happened? What is the relationship between what you’re feeling on the inside and how you present your emotions externally? These themes are contrasted with colourful, psychedelic visuals and set to an eclectic soundtrack as four dancers take you on a journey through breakdown, change and resurrection.
About The Artist
Samantha Harding is an Australian multidisciplinary creative practitioner working across dance, film, and theatre as a director, choreographer and performer. Harding trained full time as a dancer for two years before going on to complete a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance Performance at Queensland University of Technology in 2020 and a Diploma of Screen and Media Directing in 2022. She is passionate about creating work based off personal experiences that discuss feminism and the human experience, and is committed to telling stories that may otherwise be overlooked. Collaboration and multidisciplinary practice is vital to Harding’s creative process as she seeks to make thoughtful, detailed, honest work. Her process is experimental and creates abstract work that overlaps dance, film and art.
Cast and Credits
Choreographer: Samantha Harding
Dancers: Maddi Campbell, Antonia Latz, Christiana Stewart, Rebecca Thorne
Composer: Samuel Raison
