In a little village of Zakrzewo, in the local “Dom Polski” Community Centre there is an exceptionally vigorous seniors’ movement. The seniors have their own choir – “Wrzos” Singing Group (Zespół Śpiewaczy “Wrzos”) – which grew not only from the need of musical expression, but mostly from the will of creating a community, which contradicts the “nothing good happens in old age” stereotype.
It is not the first performance on MALTA FESTIVAL POZNAŃ, the heroes and the performers of which are seniors. In 2011 the famous American seniors’ choir Young@Heart had their first performance in Poland as a part of the festival. The group gave four, enthusiastically received concerts, which inspired Krzysztof Materna to produce the play Time teaches us joy (Czas nas uczy pogody), which premièred last year in Warsaw’s Och-Teatr.
Mikołaj Mikołajczyk – choreographer and dancer, “enfant terrible of Polish dance” – he is responsible, together with the seniors from Zakrzewo, for the creation of the play entitled The time is now (Teraz jest czas). Mikołajczyk’s encounter with the „Wrzos” group would not happen if it wasn’t for curiosity. Bilateral curiosity. On one part, the curiosity of an artist intrigued with a community of seniors in which “everybody knows each other, you can call us a family”, but mostly seniors who do not resign to an autumn of life devoid of humour and challenges (because their time is now). And on the other part, the curiosity of seniors from a little village in Wielkopolska, who meet an artist, who invites them to watch Pina Bausch’s performances together, acts out parts of his choreographies, and eventually persuades them to explore forms of expression and experiment previously unknown to them.