Photographs: Alex Baczynski-Jenkins, Until a thousand roses bloom (with Warsaw in the background), 2018. Images 1 & 2: Performance at Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw, 2018. Courtesy: the artist and Foksal Gallery Foundation. © Spyros Rennt / Images 3 & 4: Performance at Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw, 2018. Courtesy: the artist and Foksal Gallery Foundation.© Dawid Nickel
Until a Thousand Roses Bloom (with Warsaw in the Background)
Until a thousand roses bloom (with Warsaw in the background) by Alex Bacyzsńki-Jenkins is a performance of three hours that engages with eroticism, longing, pleasure, and touch.It was first performed on 2018 at the Foksal Foundation, between two floors.
On the first floor samples of Urszula Sipińska’s romantic ballad Nim Zakwitnie Tysiąc Róż (Until a Thousand Roses Bloom, 1971) are delivered in various loops, for example the lyrics “this is not about silly fabrics or ribbons”. A billowing red fabric, a prop for drag performances, brings to the foreground sensuality and reflects on the ephemerality of queer gestures and safe spaces for queer pleasure.
On the second floor, a choreography composed of moments and gestures of erotic charge and pleasure, that might recall situations alternately between friends, lovers, strangers. The set brings to attention topographies of desire and a reminder that the site –Foksal Gallery– takes its name from the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, a historically significant site for queer cruising.
By gathering these moments, the potential of longing and eroticism in queer relationality is reflected upon. Cruising is taken as a mode of close attention to the modulations and gestures of longing, through repetition and temporal suspension. What is being cruised here is desire and eroticism itself.
On the first floor samples of Urszula Sipińska’s romantic ballad Nim Zakwitnie Tysiąc Róż (Until a Thousand Roses Bloom, 1971) are delivered in various loops, for example the lyrics “this is not about silly fabrics or ribbons”. A billowing red fabric, a prop for drag performances, brings to the foreground sensuality and reflects on the ephemerality of queer gestures and safe spaces for queer pleasure.
On the second floor, a choreography composed of moments and gestures of erotic charge and pleasure, that might recall situations alternately between friends, lovers, strangers. The set brings to attention topographies of desire and a reminder that the site –Foksal Gallery– takes its name from the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, a historically significant site for queer cruising.
By gathering these moments, the potential of longing and eroticism in queer relationality is reflected upon. Cruising is taken as a mode of close attention to the modulations and gestures of longing, through repetition and temporal suspension. What is being cruised here is desire and eroticism itself.
CREDITS
Choreography
Alex Bacyzsńki-Jenkins
In collaboration with and performed by
Ewa Dziarnowska
Aaa Biczysko
Joseph Funnel
Billy Mogan
Filipka Rutkowska
Rafał Pierzyński
Katarzyna Szugajew
Set design
Alex Baczyński-Jenkins in collaboration with Małgorzata Nawrocka
Live sound
Krzysztof Baginski
Sound research
Filip Lech, DUNNO Recordings
Originally commissioned and produced by Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw, 2018
A production
Alex Baczyński-Jenkins Studio
Studio director
Andrea Rodrigo
Studio manager
Sarie Nijboer
Management Consultant
Rui Silveira
Distribution
Something Great