ABSTRACT
The beginning of the new century marks a period of remarkable dynamism in Polish dance, as well as significant aesthetic and structural transformation. This includes the map of contemporary dance in Poland, which I presented a few years ago in a two-part article entitled “Dance Theatre AD 2008: Hope and Continuation,” 1 recently problematized in an interesting fashion by Anna Królica, who combined it with an attempt to put the development of this field of art in Poland into separate periods. 2 Królica’s book is at once the first publication summing up the development of Polish contemporary dance (her chapter in the present volume is a résumé of sorts, which also develops selected topics). Interestingly enough, though Poland’s very position has long condemned it to being caught between intersecting influences – both in art and in the development of culture – flowing from the East and the West, as regards the development of contemporary dance within Poland itself there is no clear centre–periphery division. We might even note the reverse tendency: it has been, for many years, the periphery (whose past reveals also the present geographical shape of our country as a remarkably late construct) has for many years shaped the evolution of dance as a field of art that was slowly gaining autonomy after 1989. This is clearly visible when you consider the development of the centers in the Tri-City area and in Bytom.
