ABSTRACT
The issue stated in the title of this anthology – European dance since 1989: Communitas and the Other – prompts us to think of dance in terms of identity, and, in the present chapter, in terms of observing the process by which the identity of Polish dance has been shaped. In writing this chapter I decided to discard communitas as a category to order my thoughts. It seems to me more important to speak directly about identity and how it is formed, which is best seen in the context of historical processes. The subtitle of the anthology brings our attention to new territories of dance after 1989 and prompts us to adopt a diachronic perspective. Instead of the category of communitas I would like to use the literary figure – a metaphor – of native Europe, as created and described by Czesław Miłosz in his book Native Realm. Miłosz’s thesis regarding the Eastern European appears serviceable for describing the state of Polish dance – an art moulded by Euro-American cultural influences. Polish artists still make more frequent use of foreign artists’ stage techniques than they create new trends in dance reproduced on international stages. This is most probably a consequence of the condition of Polish dance, which finds itself in a phase of development where it has only just started strengthening and creating its own network of institutions. It is primarily this lack of institutions and a developed educational system, and the awareness of many other complications which artists in this community experience more strongly than elsewhere, that prevent us from considering Poland a country with a highly developed contemporary dance culture. ‘Our’ artists and ‘dance people’ are striving to redress this situation. To call a country’s dance life ‘institutionalised’, its state of the infrastructure and the organisational system focused on programmed activities should meet the following criteria: ‘regular financing of dance projects, venues and rooms for dance rehearsals and performances, ongoing access to education, specialist journals and regular reflections on dance, festivals and “visibility” in the international arena’. 1 Many recent events in Polish dance confirm that the decade to come will be one of institutionalisation. 2
