The aim
The aim is to raise £ 500 in order to take my solo performance OPIUM to one of the venues I've been dreaming about: Odin Teatret in Denmark. We are going to perform in Denmark in October 2017.
I need the support to cover my pianist payment, to cover mine and my pianist travel tickets and accommodation, as well as to cover fee for transport of the props.
About OPIUM
Devised by Magdalena Ewa Mazur
Live music: Sylwia Matuszak
Artistic Supervision: Vasily Maslakov
Projection: Eliška Salko
The body and voice based performance explores the mental state of woman experiencing a relationship addiction. The performance examines emotional state of the woman who, due to emotional traumas form the past, became the person craving love too much: The Love Addict. Spending the entire energy on love and not getting enough of it back, she starts to abuse it. Who did start the abuse then?
The main motivation to create OPIUM was the fact that loving too much is a common experience for many women who believe it is the only way an intimate relationships are supposed to be. The performance investigates how addiction, even love addiction, can become highly destructive, for both an individual and a relationship. OPIUM was devised from personal experience, as well as from research on relationship addiction, based on the book ‘Women Who Love Too Much’ by Robin Norwood. The script was inspired by ''Til Death do us Part: a play in one act'' by Jennifer S Hartley. The structure of the performance was established by popular love songs, such as Ne Me Quitte Pas by Jacques Brel. Addictive love, the theme of the performance, was inspired by work of Marina Abromovic and her partner Ulay, especially their performance of ’Relation in Time’.
The performance puts the light on the problem of addictive relationships promoted by pop culture. In these relationships there often occurs a fight of domination and abuse as a result. The artist starts the debate: where lies the line between love and obsession, love and abuse, love and addiction? Through questioning the lines, the artist highlights the patterns of behavior in relationships –in which one of the partners loves too much. As the root of relationship addiction can inevitably be traced to emotional traumas in childhood –loss, pain, abuse, and abandonment-the artis explores the patterns of relating developed in consequence of those traumas. Overall, the artist is interested in the dynamics that are always present and operating in relationship addiction: the unconscious drive to re-create the struggle from the past and, in confronting it again in the present, to emerge triumphant. It is a compulsion to play the game again and win this time. The struggle to prevail over what defeated the woman in the past becomes her obsession.
About myself
My name is Magdalena Ewa Mazur and I graduated from Aberystwyth University in 2015 from BA Drama, Theatre and Performance. During my studies, I have been undertaking training in acting and physical theatre. I undertook acting and physical theatre training with Jill Greenhalgh (United Kingdom), Roberta Carreri (Denmark) and Rena Mirecka (Poland). From 2015, I am an artist in Experimental Acting Studio based in Aberystwyth, Wales. Experimental Acting Studio is an art company run by two Aberystwyth University graduates (myself and Katarzyna Maslakowa), and one Gerasimov Instutute of Cinematography graduate (Vasily Maslakov). In our group training we approach the performer as a creative unit with the focus on his personal development. We are particularly interested in spiritual and emotional growth as well as body and voice training. Our approach concentrates on awakening and increasing the energy of every person in the group and also seeking for a connection on that basic, energetic level. For that purpose we perform a range of exercises deriving from various energy and meditation schools. However, unlike the different exercises performed by diverse energy schools we aim to lead the meditation practices onto the development of creative visualisations. What is more we seek the truth both in theatre, film and everyday life, as we believe the creative process is not a separated element but rather an integral part of our existence.
Find out more information:
My artist website
OPIUM on Facebook
Experimental Acting Studio on Facebook