Conversations with creators, expert meetings, and lively discussions on current topics that are perfectly linked to the festival’s performances. We talk about the expanding program of the Divine Debates and meetings with its curator, Aga Kozak.

MAGDALENA WALO: There is no hiding the fact that the Divine Debates strand has grown significantly. Someone even remarked that a mini-festival within the festival has emerged. Did you feel the need to expand and complement the festival themes with these conversations and meetings from the very beginning, or did it happen by accident, while constructing the program?

AGA KOZAK: Yes! There is a lot of it, but we are responding to the needs of our audience, who simply want, firstly, to be with the artists, also when they are "out of character"; secondly, to learn more about the performances; and thirdly – to have context and receive it through lively, real-time conversations. And furthermore – the theater community needs contexts! Theater is the world, and the world is theater – so contextual conversations about the world in the context of theater, and vice versa, are essential! I was simply invited by Bartosz Szydłowski to invent a so-called "discourse programme," which I do with great pleasure. And it was Maja Kuczmińska who figured out that I would be good at it.

MW: This year's program is extremely dense, very diverse, and polyphonic. Please reveal how you worked on it.

AK: First, I spoke with Director Szydłowski about what MUST be included in the program of debates, conversations, and meetings, and then I added my own "treats." When building the program, I start with a brainstorming session with myself and the team, and with intuition, because I am like a living antenna – I pick up tracks from the world. I guess it’s a kind of journalistic-ADHD trait turned into a talent. And then I open my phone and call all those people who I know have something ultra-interesting to say on a given topic, and I either ask them to put together a panel for us, or we arrange it together. I have wishes and suggestions, but it is the hosts who are responsible for the "dramaturgy." After all, they are the pros in their fields.

MW: "Waiting for the Barbarians" is the leitmotif of this year's festival edition. Who, in your opinion, is such a barbarian – male or female – of this year's debates?

AK: In the positive sense? Arti Grabowski, who beautifully redirected the debate about the body towards the spirituality of the body. And Prof. Monika Płatek, who is simply a valiant person, a total trickster in the fields of philosophy and law.

MW: Last year you hosted most of the meetings; this year you handed that field over to various experts. Where did that decision come from?

AK: Because I wouldn't be able to carry that much anymore – but I assure you, I was leading from the back seat! And sometimes I would jump in to guide something, to add something – a terrible habit, but I am, after all, the controlling "mother" of this section. I hope I’ve been forgiven. Next year, maybe I’ll manage to host something, because I LOVE it!

MW: We are already halfway through the planned debates and discussions. Can you reveal what else awaits the Divine Comedy audience and why it is truly worth attending these specific meetings?

AK: On Friday, you cannot miss the discussion on the state in a borderline situation – 6:45 PM at MOS (free admission, no ticket required). It might seem like a debate about Ukraine, but it is actually a confrontation with burning ethical questions about what to do and how to act when barbarians – the real ones – invade. I speak about this with a lump in my throat because I don’t know what I would do myself. And in our panel, the wonderful journalist and writer, head of the Foreign Desk at Gazeta Wyborcza – Michał Olszewski – will talk with the incredible young war correspondent Antonina Palarczyk, with Ziemowit Szczerek, a writer who is in Ukraine constantly, and with Olha Menko – founder of the UAinKrakow.pl portal directed at the Ukrainian community, Ambassador of Multiculturalism for the City of Kraków, and a Ukrainian journalist living in Poland. I know this will be a terribly important conversation.

Disclaimer: This content has been translated automatically.