Tadek Kantor’s Objects – Cricot² Theatre with introduction by Marek Rostworowski (an information guide written in 1986)

Kantor is likened to a Renaissance alchemist; lost in thought, working passionately yet methodically towards knowledge.

“Materials, which Kantor takes from reality in order to throw them into the forge of his performances, are subjected to a transformation of their functions and specific qualities. They are not simply elements illustrating a wider project, (already defined in the initial phase), but reagents which reveal their invisible side, their unexpected parallelisms and contrasts in the process of transformation.”

The audience becomes yet another one of his materials within the performance. Machines are used consistently within his work – both funny and threatening, they become metaphors for a world built on a tension between contrasting, co-existing poles; chaos and geometry, catastrophe and order, chance and constructive necessity. They are described as Kantor’s, ‘traps set for conventional aspects of reality.’ Space is not treated as an empty vessel to fill compositionally – as Matisse called, ‘a comfortable sofa’ (by which I think he meant the lazy use of space, not necessarily traditional, but easy to fall into). Space is not absolute; it exists as a result of contrasts and conflicts.

“Every gesture, even the most banal one, may unsettle the invisible balance, may set the trap in motion. A whole life may depend on the position of a suitcase.” Space is one of the most valuable commodities; we invest in it on every single level, financially, temporally, physically, emotionally… Yet within the theatre it is consistently used as a blank canvas, built on top of with various carefully positioned components. Any space however has a multitude of codes and sign to decipher, within the structure itself and this is I believe what Kantor worked with, rather than working over.