She was a friend of someone else
Gosia Wdowik / NOWY TEATR & CAMPO
She was a friend of someone else was made in a country where women have limited access to reproductive health, and where abortion is now illegal. Despite immense protests, women were simply denied their rights. The project started with the idea that women could come together and, without shame or fear, publicly manifest that they’ve had an abortion, and that this collective act would change the law.
It could be an activist success story.
But She was a friend of someone else is a story with too many beginnings, too few endings – and an exhausted narrator.
In this creation, Gosia Wdowik explores the link between burnout and activism: the fear that rights are not acquired forever, and that the moment one lowers the attention, they risk disappearing. Through a personal narrative, she describes the commitment to women's rights in Poland. Through subtle choreography, we are drawn into the life of a woman who decides one day, instead of protesting, to stay in bed, only to eventually come out again.
Premiere: 20, 21, 22 & 23 May 2023 - Brussels, Kunstenfestivaldesarts