poetic choreographer, performance maker, curator of experiences
VALA TANZ
poetic choreography making as well as the practice of oral pleasures such as talking, whispering, eating, kissing, sucking could potentially become the resource and tool for a change. the choreography of soft resistance and reality queering ( those two i named as my practices of empowerment) are ways of undoing and remaking the social and political realm, in which i was given a chance to be.
i call the world for a soft transformation, for gentle touch, a wave of weightless resistance. i call for love and mutual affection. i wanna live in a world where there are no borders, where we speak poetry, where geopolitics are geopoetics, where maps are no ends, where imagination is limitless, where the time is in its lessness form, where body is one yet differ from one another. i call the world for care and generosity where love is not a fear, where we gather in togetherness yet we are individuals. i wanna live and i do, where this imagined love, a man, a partner, companion are corporeal.
Valentine Tanz / Vala Tomasz Foltyn
ABOUT
Vala is poetic choreographer, performance maker, physical thinker, improvising artist, as well as community leader, art curator, host and producer based in Krakow, Poland. Vala moved to Copenhagen in 2019, currently enrolled at Malmö Art Academy.
She/They gained master's degree in cultural anthropology at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. She also graduated from "Performers House" school in Silkeborg, Denmark - a dance training with Alyssa Joy Stith, as well as a training from "Artness - Home and School for Movement” in Israel - directed by Shahar Dar. In 2011 he received a dance grant to study with Anna Halprin at the Mountain Studio in California, which evolved into a long term research on her choreographic heritage. Since 2008 she's been working with Slovenian art collective Kud Ljud, their works were presented at many art festivals worldwide: South Korea Seoul Gwacheon Festival, Imaginarius in Portugal, Norwich & Norfolk Theatre Festival, Oerol Festival in Holland, Les Tombées de la nuit and Chalon dans la rue in France, La Strada Graz in Austria, ,In situ network.
Her works were also presented at Sophien Seale at Tanz Tage festival in Berlin, Zachęta Art Museum in Warsaw, Zamek Ujazdowski CSW in Warsaw, Bunkier Sztuki - contemporary art gallery in Krakow, MOCAK museum of modern art in Krakow, Galerija Moderna in Ljubljana. She also worked with Isabelle Shad, Paulina Ołowska, Anna Bella Geiger, Ivo Dimchev, Christine de Smedt, Iwona Olszowska, Magda Ptasznik, Justyna Stasiowska, Agata Siniarska, Kaya Kołodziejczyk, Roni Katz, Magda Szpecht. In 2017 he held the panel "Empowerment in dance practices" as part of Inventur #2 in Dusseldorf - Contemporary Dance & Performance Conference. She also co-curated 40th and 41st edition of Krakow Theatrical Reminiscences - KRT.
Vala is also a co-creator of Krakow Art House - an art space in Krakow - 110 years old villa, where art and urban activism is being sheltered. In Kraków, he also collaborates with local artists in the frame of protest art and activism with Water Critical Mass, Modraszek Kolektyw, Obrona Zakrzówka, kolektyw niedzielni. In 2016, she founded Lamella the house of queer arts, which is is a nonstationary house of queer arts. Lamella is an artist-run independent collective that fertilizes the artistic, social and cultural development of Kraków's LGBTQ community. It applies its mission by presenting, exhibiting, screening and documenting queer artists' works. Lamella supports the growth of culturally diverse queer art events in Kraków. Lamella is creating a safe space for reflecting queer identity and engages in the process of political, cultural and sexual liberation.
CZUŁOŚĆ
powered by
vala, lamella, krakow art house,
friends & lovers
The event “Valantynki - Tanz mit Vala. Support the Eros” is part of crowdfunding campaign to gather funds for Vala’s training “Authentic Eros” in Berlin. Vala choreographed a “love ritual” and invited guest artists to share their talents and affection in order to provide art for the guests of the event. Vala offered the space of her home for art making and community ritual. She believes that ritual can provide space for people to come together in the process of art making in order to challenge, support and question their existence. The series of performances and installations (cuddle room, vagina room, tarrot room, crystal ancestors exhibit, poetic choreography exhibit) were affectionately contributed by Maque Pereyra, Śominika Dniegocka, Pauline Peyen, Agata Siniarska, Maja Chiara Faber, Monika Bąkowska, Adam Kovalcsik, Leona Jacewska aka Charlie, Spajder, Adam Gruba & Sesama, Bartolomeo Koczenasz, Klaudyna Schubert and all friends & lovers who helped produce, host and safeguard the event. Thank you. More crowdfunding Eros events are coming soon.
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LAMELLA
THE HOUSE OF QUEER ARTS
Lamella is a nonstationary house of queer arts based in Cracow, Poland. It is an artist-run, friendship-based collective that fertilizes the artistic, social and cultural growth of Cracow's LGBTQAI+++ community, founded in 2016 by Vala Tomasz Foltyn. It performs its mission by presenting, exhibiting, producing and documenting works of queer/feminist artists, activists and makers. Lamella supports the growth of culturally diverse queer art events in Cracow. Lamella seeks to safeguard spaces for reflecting on queer identity and engages in the process of political, cultural and sexual liberation. As a friendship-based collective/enviroment they are interested in developing alternative forms of feminist and queer practices, as well as international tools for art and community making, as a response to hyper capitalistic notions of exclusion, productivity and labour.
KRAKÓW ART HOUSE
Artist-run space in the heart of Cracow
Kraków Art House is an artist-run independent art/cultural space located in the heart of Cracow. The house was built in 1907, and to this date maintaining its original shape once protected by a legal heritage status. Nowadays it functions as the home for local and international artists and activists involved in diverse activities. It is a shared space for living and art making, it makes room for cultural productions that bridge the building to the surrounding city areas. And as such it acts as a basis for alternative possibilities to dominant social, cultural and political consensus.
This original red-bricks villa is over a century old and for the past five years it's being filled with artistic and friendship-making events. It shelters the development of self-creating independent culture in the city of Cracow. So far it has enabled the creation and development of initiatives such as: Modraszek Collective, The Water Critical Mass‚ the defense of Bialowieza Forest, Association To.pole, Sauna Social the Goat, Lamella – the house of queer arts, VALA Land. It also hosted artists and travellers from around the world who paid it a visit. This project was initiated by Vala Tomasz Foltyn and Bartolomeo Koczenasz, it was thought as an open platform where people can share, make and present their art to the local community. It provides independent environment for experiments in the frame of collective think tank, as well as serving its space for more established cultural events and festivals, such as: Unsound Festival, KRAKERS Gallery Weekend, Water Critical Mass.