Hate House

Hate Haus is a show that takes the topic of functioning in a collective as a workshop. Both capitalist criticism and opposition to the old patriarchal models of cultural production, based on the absolute power of the artist-guru (especially strongly promoted by the Polish theatrical tradition) led to the fact that artistic circles began to glorify collective work. Its attraction becomes stronger the more compromised a hierarchy around which — often unreasonably — many contiguous values such as violence, absolutism, lack of respect for personal boundaries have grown. However, both the members of the Hertz Haus team and the choreographer Ramona Nagabczyńska (who has been collectively leading the organization of the Center in Movement for thirteen years) come to the conclusion that collective work solves some problems, but other problems arise in their place. Co-creation of a collective is always experimental, because we do not have ready-made models that work based on a hierarchical system has. Each collective develops its own system of functioning, which, in addition, must be able to adapt to the constantly changing conditions, goals and needs of its members. The work undertaken by the collective is always at the same time work for a specific project and work for the self-determination of the collective.

What is common to building a collective and working on choreography is processiveness. Both the collective and the choreographic process seem to live their own lives, taking on their own agency, to which members and collaborators must listen and support each other. Ramona Nagabczyńska is interested in bringing out the particular voice of the Hertz Haus collective. Not only the voices of the individual members of the group, but the voice of the creation to which they gave life. A vote that is more or less than the sum of the individual votes. It will not be a show about collectives as such, but about the collective that is Hertz Haus. For this purpose, we will use for choreographic work the experience of the group, for which we will find choreographic equivalents. We will ask ourselves questions that will help us better understand the nature of the creation that Hertz Haus co-create, among others: Does every voice really have the same weight? Can there be a terror of collectivity? Where are the limits of compromise? What is the relationship between personal responsibility and collective responsibility? What is the motivation to co-create a collective? The artists decided to call the play Hate Haus an autotematic joke, because the name Hertz Haus (hertz, as the heart) does not always correspond to the ambivalence of their feelings.