Jerzy grotowski biography

GROTOWSKI’S ARS MAGNA

Leszek Kolankiewicz

(b. 11 August 1933 in Rzeszów, Poland – d. 14 January 1999 in Pontedera, Italy) was a theatre director, researcher investigating the art of acting and, broadly speaking, performance, a lecturer in theatre anthropology, reformer of the performing arts and cultural visionary.

Jerzy grotowski biography

Between 1957 and 1969 he directed seventeen performances, including eleven at the Laboratory Theatre, based initially in Opole and later in Wrocław, which he founded and ran. Four of these performances – Akropolis (1962), Dr Faustus (1963), The Constant Prince (1965) and Apocalypsis cum Figuris (1969) – earned Grotowski a global reputation and they entered the canon of the greatest achievements of twentieth-century theatre.

He presented his method of acting and broader programme in the 1968 book Towards a Poor Theatre (Polish edition, 2007). In a series of inspired manifestoes (Jak żyć by można [1971; trans.: How One Could Live, 1975]; Takim, jaki