Solastalgia, created by Polish born, London-based choreographer Kasia Witek, is a new dance performance that responds to the climate emergency that we face today, fostering emotional resilience, hope, and a sense of togetherness in both performers and audiences. Solastalgia explores the wide range of emotions that the climate crisis evokes, questioning our perception of nature as ‘other’.
Solastalgia is showing at Peckham Theatre in London on 6th January. Check it out here.
Kasia Witek (artistic director/choreographer) is a Polish-born, UK-based dance artist and choreographer. Her work spans installation, video, theatre and outdoor performance. Her works include National Polish Theatre: Tale of the snakes heart (2022) and The hearing trumpet (2021) with Agnieszka Glinska, solo performance with London Symphony Orchestra Towards Hope (2018), one wall of me (2019), You, passing (2016) to name a few. She also makes work for opera, film and theatre.
Your new performance, Solastalgia, dives into the topic of climate anxiety. Can you talk more about the concept behind it?
This work has been sort of a turning point in my journey as a choreographer and maker. It does feel a little bit like I have made a full circle, coming back to the place from which I make work that touches the matters of my heart in a direct way. I started to think explicitly about this work in the summer of 2019. Hearing the news about the Amazon rainforest burning and feeling so ridiculously helpless, feeling an enormous amount of grief. I was overwhelmed. At the same time I saw all the young people taking to the streets in protest, I saw the messages of togetherness, I saw and felt their strength and also their absolute desperation. It was obvious to me that in my next work I would be dancing all of this. I also had a sense of people burning out so quickly, the immense pain crushing people. This made me realise that whoever is able to, needs to stay strong for others. So my thought was to make work that can be a reminder that no one is alone in this. I needed to look for hope. And as a friend told me recently: hope is a discipline.
How does the movement in Solastalgia describe how we deal with climate change?
That’s a great question. One that I keep asking myself. How can dance talk about this? What can formal choreography talk about? When researching and creating this work we have focused less on describing and more on listening. My goal in the process, in the studio, was to learn how to listen to the “other” entities around us. And potentially to give those “others” more of a platform to speak. This idea has made its way into the final creation. In this particular work we focus on the material of wood, represented in the performance by 5 wooden staffs. You might also say I made a kind of principle for myself, and that was to create movement guided by a sense of interconnectivity and most importantly mutual care. The result is what you see in the dance.
Tell us more about the role of the music in this work.
Music has always been of extreme importance in my work. Initially when I thought of a soundscape for this work I envisaged a large wooden instrument and thought double bass would be a perfect choice. So that in some way the sound of wood could also make it into the work via the composed music. Another idea which we have discussed with the composer of this work Alex Roth was that we do not need to shy away from melody. Alex’s composition for this piece brought me to tears many times, especially the opening track. Discussions around shaping the soundscape have also revealed to me more clearly what it is that I wish to say with this work or what it is that I would like the audience to experience. The music is absolutely a crucial part of this performance.
Is this a recurrent topic in your choreographic work? What’s similar/different from your previous dance pieces?
My work has always been a vehicle for me to learn and to process my own uncomfortable truths or unknowns. In my previous work “one wall of me” I took upon myself to learn, slowly and deeply, what it means to be interconnected with the world on a somatic level. How does it feel, what does it look like to be in a state of absolute attunement with everything? With the dancers, we held many nourishing and fruitful conversations on things that surfaced: hierarchy, presence, interdependence, thinking matter. It was a very important work for me as it gave me a strong foundation and placement within the topic of dance and ecology. And to tell you a secret, the last scene of “one wall of me” is the very opening scene of “Solastalgia”. This latest piece is definitely a continuation of these ideas, although I made a shift to a more formal choreography which I am excited about. I am curious how it can communicate these thoughts.
What can audiences expect from this performance?
You can expect human and non-human bodies moving together. You can expect a shift of perspective, where an object might become a presence. And expect to feel that kinship, tenderness and care are all possible.
Kasia Witek presents Solastalgia at Peckham Theatre on Saturday, 6th January: https://www.theatrepeckham.co.uk/show/solastalgia/