Florentina Holzinger – Austrian choreographer, performer, and director – has, within the space of just years, become an absolute sensation on European stages. Her productions combine choreography, circus, theatre, martial arts, and radical performance; with her ensemble, she continuously pushes the boundaries of what can be shown on stage. Tickets for her performances sell out in an instant, wherever they have been presented – from the US and Canada via Germany, Belgium, Spain, China, Italy, and Sweden, to Finland. In December, Holzinger and her team will appear in Kraków for the first time.

In Rok bez lata / A Year Without Summer – co-produced by Boska Komedia / Divine Comedy – Holzinger refers to the phenomenon that occurred over two hundred years ago, when the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia set off a chain of climatic anomalies across Europe, causing temperatures to plummet and crops to wither. The atmosphere of fear and panic that gripped Europe in that “year without summer” inspired, among other works, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: the now-legendary novel about humanity’s struggle with the consequences of its own act of creation. Holzinger’s production explores the ways how we construct narratives about our bodies, the environments we inhabit, illness and maladies, anomalies, and spreading disintegration. She is interested in the possibility of building a community in times of crisis, and the affirmation of the human body – fragile yet endowed with the power to create and sustain life. As in her previous works, the limelight is on the body: its creative force; its ability to shock, to transgress, to move, to tell the story of human experience. Through Holzinger’s work, European theatre experiences a much needed jolt – one that urges it to abandon old forms and modes of storytelling and to seek what may still be alive – ergo dazzling, yet also demanding – in the encounter between stage artists and the audience.

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The performance contains: scenes of sex, self-harm, and childbirth; realistic depictions of blood; visible use of needles; detailed descriptions of sexual violence; and excrements. 

The performance uses very loud music. Performers smoke cigarettes on stage and stroboscopes are used.

This performance is for adult audiences only.

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Performances co-financed by the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation.

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Photo by Nicole Marianna Wytyczak