Originally, the piece was intended as a séance in which it is not us calling the departed, but the spirits of the dead calling to have a trace of the past revealed, made visible, unearthed. The title, Armine, Sister, recalls the first two words of a letter with no clear address, which is doomed to drift around in time and space.

In light of the post-Auschwitz future that Theodor W. Adorno envisaged for poetry, art and education, we would like to ask: “Is there a chance that the 21st century will not become the century of ignorance?” In our new piece we ask about Europe, convinced that Europe is a question – one about history, identity, dignity. One of the main ideas of Armine, Sister is to tackle the issue of historic taboos and lies as opposed to a duty to witness.

When working on the performance, we often invoked Paul Celan’s Death Fugue, in which the dreams of the murderers and victims are dreamt in the same space. The space of the performance/séance of memory, like the space of a dream, is co-inhabited by thousands of beings. Armine, Sister touches on how painful the memory-carrying process can be. It is also an attempt to identify/name our place in relation to past generations, and to understand who we are – we, who always stand on the other side of memory like on the other side of the camera. We gaze at history through a peephole, seeing only a trace, a shadow, a thought.

For our new project, Armine, Sister, we decided to explore Anatolian monodic traditions, based on the group’s vocal competence built for over ten years, resulting from our experience performing polyphonic songs. The project includes musicians from various music traditions of Asia Minor, Anatolia and Iran, whom we met on our expeditions: the Wan-born Kurdish singer Dengbej Kazo; Murat Iclinalca, the master singer at St Gregory the Illuminator Church in Istanbul; the Teheran-born sisters Mahsa and Marjan Vahdat; and Vahan Kerovpyan, a composer and drummer born to an Armenian family in Paris. We also collaborate with the singer Virginia Pattie Kerovpyan. Our main collaborator on Armine, Sister is Aram Kerovpyan, the Istanbul-born master singer of the Armenian Cathedral in Paris.

Performers/musicians: Davit Baroyan, Ditte Berkeley, Przemysław Błaszczak, Alessandro Curti, Jarosław Fret, Murat Iclinalca, Dengbej Kazo, Aram Kerovpyan, Vahan Kerovpyan, Kamila Klamut, Aleksandra Kotecka, Simona Sala, Orest Sharak, Mahsa Vahdat, Marjan Vahdat, Tomasz Wierzbowski

Modal song studio led by: Aram Kerovpyan

Vocal collaboration: Virginia Pattie Kerovpyan

Sets built by a team led by Piotr Jacyk: Maciej Mądry, Krzysztof Nawój, Paweł Nowak, Bartosz Radziszewski, Andrzej Walada

Lighting: Maciej Mądry

Project coordination: Magdalena Mądra

Musical dramaturgy, installation, director: Jarosław Fret

Premiered on 28 November 2013

Running time: 80 minutes

Teatr ZAR is a multinational group that was formed in Wrocław by apprentices of the Grotowski Institute and took shape during annual research expeditions to Georgia between 1999 and 2003. During these expeditions, the apprentices collected much musical material, including a core of centuries-old polyphonic songs that are probably the oldest forms of polyphony in the world. The name of the group, ZAR, is taken from the title of funeral songs, which in Caucasian tradition, among others in Svaneti, are the essence of singing understood as “column of sound”.

Work of Teatr ZAR attempts to demonstrate that theatre does not only relate to thea (Greek for “seeing”) but it is something that above all should be heard. From such hearing, deep images are born that would be impossible to create even by means of the most modern theatre technology; where the body of a singing actor shines and emanates with the energy of sound, of the song that lies within.

Performances of the company are just part of a long process of research, expeditions, personal explorations and transformation. ZAR brings back theatre as it was before art ruptured into different disciplines and styles. Its work addresses themes that, in the contemporary world, seem to be reserved only for the religious domain. It comes from conviction, influenced by Polish Romantic ideas, that art is not only complementary to religion but can fill the dynamic chasm between the everyday and transcendent life. Juliusz Osterwa, one of the greatest figures of 20th-century Polish theatre who tried to put these ideas into practice – and one whose ideas had a great impact on Jerzy Grotowski – once wrote: “God created theatre for those for whom the church does not suffice”.

From 2011 the company is working on the new project Armine, Sister, dedicated to Armenian culture and realised through expeditions and studies of Armenian tradition and history. The new performance was Premiered on 28 November 2013 at the Na Grobli Studio of the Grotowski Institute in Wrocław.

More information: www.teatrzar.art.pl