A Workshop With Ryszard Cieslak

Apocalypsis Cum Figuris marked the last theatrical performance of the Polish Theatre Lab. Although this spectacle is still performed periodically by the group, its members are primarily concerned with different projects. Initially these projects were termed “paratheatre.” The name was transformed gradually and moved outside the realm of legitimate theatre. Grotowski started to use the term Active Culture. Very recently, a new term emerged out of this innovative group of artists: Theatre of Roots (or Roots of Theatre). What exactly this new term brings with it is still to be discovered.The following is a description of a Theatre of Roots workshop led by Ryszard Cieslak of the Polish Theatre Lab and co-led by myself. It was a ten-day workshop that included twenty participants (an even number of men and women) and took place in and around Penn State University.