MAGNIFICAT

Excerpt of interview with Marta Górnicka, “Wprost”, 6 June, 2011

– Who, or maybe what, is the Virgin Mary – for you personally?
– A myth which shapes us, and which confronts every woman with such an enormous task that not one of us is capable of performing it. She is a virgin, immaculate, but also a mother who gives birth to a son. Well of course – a son! The Queen and Mother of the Universe, but also a hostage of community fantasies. The Virgin Mary is the perfect tool for ideological control over women, for the paradoxical offer they are faced with on a daily basis – which they cannot refuse, but also cannot perform. “Elevation through humiliation” at the service of the Father and the Son. The Virgin Mary is a wonderful image – half-closed eyes, an alabaster complexion, angelic and silent lips. Who could resist her? In my show, this sacred image finally starts to speak with its own voice, she distributes flyers and appears on Lego pieces. She no longer has a high voice, but one as hoarse as Darth Vader’s. The Virgin Mary shouts, laughs, and even rattles […] I wanted to write another libretto for The Chorus of Women, a kind of social essay, about the power the Church exerts over the female body. I get into several topics simultaneously: gender, body, ideological taming, language as a tool for control and the different gods of our world. This time I wanted to disarm the image of the woman – which is accursed in the image of the Virgin Mary. To see what hides beneath that blue dress.

MAGNIFICAT has received a number of awards, such as the 2012 Grand Prix at the 47th Small Forms Theatre Review KONTRAPUNKT in Szczecin, Poland, or the Grand Prize for Marta Górnicka for Stage Direction and the Audience Award for Best Performance at the 3rd m-Teatr Koszalin Youth Confrontations in 2012. It has been awarded the prestigious Silver Laurel Wreath for the Best International Production at the Theatre Festival MESS in Sarajevo as well as two special awards: the Sound of MESS Award from the journalists of Radio Sarajevo and the Hrabri Novi Svijet Award from Dani magazine. Marta Górnicka has also received the first prize for stage direction at the “Fast Forward” European Festival for Young Stage Directors in Braunschweig, Germany.

MAGNIFICAT has been presented at numerous international festivals, including: in France (at the La grande halle de la Villette in Paris, the METTRE EN SCÈNE Festival in Rennes, the Festival International de Théâtre SENS INTERDITS in Lyon, the European Theatre Festival PREMIÈRES in Strasbourg, the Festival La Rose des Vents in Villeneuve d’Ascq, the Théâtre National d’Arras, the Festival Écoute/Voir in Tours, the Festival Parallèle in Marseille, Aix-en-Provence and Martigues), in Germany (at the BERLINER FESTSPIELE Foreign Affairs, the Hebbel Am Uffer – Berlin, the „Fast Forward” European Festival for Young Stage Directors in Braunschweig, the Forum Freies Theater in Düsseldorf), in Switzerland (at the Dokumentartage IT’S THE REAL THING in Basel, the Antigel Festival in Geneva, the Festival de la Cité in Lausanne), Bosnia and Herzegovina (at the International Theater Festival MESS Sarajevo), in England (at the European Arts and Theatre Festival in Notthingham), in Greece (at the Onasis Cultural Center in Athens), in Holland (at the SPRING Festival in Utrecht,) Austria (at the International Performing Arts Festival SZENE in Salzburg) and Spain (Theatros del Canal) in 2020 and Chile (International Theatre Festival Santiago A Mil) in 2021.

As a video installation, MAGNIFICAT was presented at the Palais am Festungsgraben as part of an exhibition accompanying the 4th Berliner Herbstsalon festival 2019; at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw, Poland; in the frame of  MULTITUDE Marta Górnicka’s monographic exhibition at the Berliner Gallery Weekend 2020.