First of all
I feel honoured to have been given the opportunity to create a piece in Poland, especially given that 2009 is “The Year of Grotowski”.
Despite the physical and cultural distance between my native Persian culture and Poland –I have always felt quite at home here. It is inspiring to be in the city where the not only the Theatre of the Thirteen Rows was born but also the birthplace of Grotowski’s Theatre Laboratory.
Therefore, from depths of my heart, I offer this performance to Jerzy Grotowski- a precious inspiration to us all.
Second of all
I would like to give my best regards to a special person who gave me the opportunity to live and work in Opole. I firmly believe that such an international cultural collaboration is not easy to arrange. Especially, in this day and age when in many countries the budget for cultural and artistic activities falls underneath that of the military yearly budget!
Thank you so much to:
Mrs Beata Maliszkiewicz
Mr. Krystof Żyliński
And Mrs. Denise Rinehart for her researches and poems that became a notation for the performance.
Third
“Auschwitz” is not only the name of a place which they called a “concentration camp” but it is also a dangerous ideology which still exists in many countries. However, we prefer to close our eyes, cover our ears and shut our mouths in order to feel the peaceful world around us. But, when I close my eyes at night, I see the faces of the prisoners in Auschwitz 60 years coming alive. When I cover my ears, I still hear the children crying in Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Rwanda, Korea, Vietnam, Japan and Gaza from only just few months ago. But I refuse to shut my mouth. This performance is my remonstrance against the “Auschwitz” which still continues. Because it is an ideology and not only the name of a place.
I truly believe,
Mehdi Farajpour
