Maria Magdalena Kozłowska (PL/NL)
The Polish Project
In The Polish Project, Maria Magdalena Kozłowska weaves a musical and visual universe where physical labour and artistic expression merge. It’s a world where scaffolding becomes a stage, a pallet truck turns into an instrument, and a worker’s story transforms into a libretto — all accompanied by live jazz. The Polish Project is the blossom of a long artistic research process.
Programme section Julidans On Stage
World premiere
Location Frascati
Venue Frascati 4
Run time nnb
Language Polish
Surtitles English
The Polish Project
Born from conversations with Polish migrant workers, the result is a raw, lyrical performance full of rhythm, breath, and unfiltered honesty. Their voices — recorded, sung, whispered — resonate between scaffolding tubes, bodies, and speakers. The boundaries between labour and art, between documentation and imagination, dissolve.
Using opera, choreography, and video, Kozłowska explores the fragile balance between identity, embodiment, and economic reality. The performance is an ode to invisible labour, to lost ideals, and to the resilience of people who keep building — not only houses, but themselves.
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In this universe, the ethos of art and the ethos of labour are inseparable: both demand commitment, push the body to its limits, and carry the risk of exhaustion — or even collapse. Working without protection can kill — just like continuing to dance while falling. Art and labour here are not only identities, but markers of class, always inches away from the edge.
The Polish Project will have its world premiere at Julidans 2025.
More about Maria Magdalena Kozłowska
Maria Magdalena Kozłowska (PL/NL) studied philosophy in Warsaw and graduated from DAS Theatre (AHK) in 2020. Her work explores the human voice as an intimate and political medium—connecting personal memory, ritual, identity and resistance. She has presented work at venues such as the Venice Biennale, KW Berlin, Frascati, Gessnerallee and Belluard Bollwerk Festival. Since 2021, she has been an associate artist at Frascati Productions, creating COMMUNE and Dead Skin. In 2023, she co-created an adaptation of Jérôme Bel for the Holland Festival with Pankaj Tiwari.
Credits
set design, costumes Jan Tomza-Osiecki
mythological costumes Alicja Wysocka
dramaturgy, choreography Renee Copraij
choreography Wojciech Grudzinski
music Teoniki Rożynek
production Naomi Russell
