Arti Grabowski is a Polish interdisciplinary artist, performer, theatre director, painter, and sculptor. He works at the intersection of performance art, independent and off-theater. He has presented his work at international performance art festivals, theatre events, and contemporary art reviews worldwide. His creative practice combines corporeal performance, elements of physical theatre, intermedia activities, and experimental strategies. As a curator and organizer, he has co-created key events in the Polish performance scene, including the International Art Festival “Interakcje” in Piotrków Trybunalski, the International Theatre Festival A Part in Katowice, and the Bipolar International Performers’ Meetings at the State Art Gallery in Sopot. He has collaborated with numerous off-theater groups (including the Cinema Theatre, the Brama Theatre, and the Porywacze Ciał Theatre), producing performances, monodramas, and intermedia projects. He was a member of Fort Sztuki and the Estonian group Non Grata. A graduate and faculty member of the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, where he heads Poland’s first Performance Art Studio at the Faculty of Intermedia and serves as Director of the Academy’s Doctoral School. His teaching activities include his own programs, the Laboratory of Perception and Discomfort, in which he explores the relationships between the body, language, the creative process, and social structures.
“Romeo” is a moving study of human anxiety, confined within the claustrophobic space of one’s own phobias, obsessions, and fears. The performance is inspired by a real-life figure – a retired professor, a neighbor of the play’s author, who suffers from agoraphobia, an irrational fear of open spaces, crowds, and travel. He confines his entire external life to two square meters – the third-floor balcony of a tenement house, which becomes his personal lectern, proscenium, theater stage, and, at the same time, a prison with no escape route.
The professor, torn between his inner powerlessness and utopian visions, weaves moralizing treatises, preaches to his neighbors, and delivers fiery manifestos to a world he cannot truly touch. It is in this microscopic space that his mind conjures grand visions, becoming a revolutionary leader, poet, bard, and philosopher, though he will never lead people out into the streets. Paradoxically, his DNA contains the DRD4-7R gene, known as the adventure gene or nomad gene—an ironic gift of fate for someone who will never set foot in their own apartment. The play depicts a metaphorical pyramid of enslavement, whose foundations are complexes, addictions, and phobias, and at its peak lie real-world references to geopolitics. It is a tragicomic tale of how fear—both personal and social—shapes individuals and nations, building defense mechanisms, obsessions, and authoritarian narratives.
Written,directed and performed: Arti Grabowski
Music: Billy Idol, Isabella Colbran, Henry Purcell
Premiere: December 2024
Running time: 60 minutes
The performance will be translated into Polish Sign Language (PJM).
Tickets for the performance HERE.
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