Hertz Haus is a company founded in 2018 in Gdańsk by dancers and choreographers Magdalena Kowala, Natalia Murawska, Joanna Woźna, and Anna Zglenicka. The group creates its own aesthetic, drawing on contemporary and physical dance, as well as improvisation and performative actions, striving to develop its own stage language. In 2019, the founders established the Daughters of Culture Association, whose mission is to bring dance to a wider audience, create a repertoire, and develop an artistic and educational program.
The company has created over a dozen performances to date, two of which – “Unbody” from 2020 and “To bitch or not to bitch” from 2024 – have brought it nationwide recognition and acclaim from audiences, the dance community, and critics. “Unbody” received first prize in the nationwide competition for the best independent theater production, The Best Off 2022, was included in the Polish Dance Network 2022, and was named a finalist for the Polish Dance Platform 2024 in Łódź. “To bitch or not to bitch” received the main prize at SzekspirOFF during the 28th Shakespeare Festival in Gdańsk, was once again among the finalists of The Best Off competition, and will also perform in the finals of the Polish Dance Platform 2026 in Wrocław as one of the best dance performances of the last two years in Poland.
To be or not to be for the body. In cultural and social contexts, we throw around concepts—and, inevitably, judgments. A dirty body or a clean one? Untainted or remaining what it is in its essence? Are there universal criteria to resolve these dilemmas? For the artists, physicality is essential: guts, digestion and excretion, blemishes, eczema, and stains; a laboratory where physiology meets philosophy.
In the performance “To bitch or not to bitch,” Hertz Haus takes Shakespeare’s poem “The Rape of Lucrece” as its starting point, but without resorting to direct representations of violence. Instead, it focuses on the traces that rape leaves on the female body and psyche, and on the care of the wounded body.
It is also a story about the boundary separating the pure from the dirty, and what can be shown in the theater from what should not be shown.
Hertz Haus
Direction, choreography, costumes, and performance: Hertz Haus
Music: Wojciech Wilk
Dramaturgical consultation: Patrycja Kowańska
Lighting consultation: Filip Ejsmont
Premiere: July 2024
Production: Shakespeare Festival in Gdańsk
Performance duration: 60 minutes
The performance is interpreted into Polish Sign Language.
+18
The performance contains profanity, flashing lights, and full nudity.
Tickets for the performance HERE.
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