The Monument at Voila! Europe Festival, Camden People's Theatre
Fri, 22 Nov
|London
A one-woman intermittent drag performance with audience participation using spoken word and comedy. A story of Bogdan - an Eastern European builder working on a mysterious construction site, juxtaposed with a real story of the world’s largest Stalin monument.
Time & Location
22 Nov 2024, 21:00 – 22:30
London, 58-60 Hampstead Rd, London NW1 2PY, UK
About the event
Bogdan is a relatable everyman and a hard worker involved in a mysterious construction project. Following a typical migrant path he’s focused on earning money and imagining the future ahead. So far it’s not looking great. Bogdan is desperately looking for real love and connection. Caught in a work-sleep routine, he fills his loneliness and lack of life purpose with dating apps and doom scrolling on social media, interrupted by a barrage of news from the wider world. Bogdan begins to question the aim of his hard work and wants to find out what he’s building. Bogdan’s life is juxtaposed with the tragi-comic true story of Otakar Švec - a sculptor behind the largest monument of Stalin in Czechoslovakia. Positioned side by side, two stories of Bogdan & Otakar create a dialogue between two individuals, two societies and two moments in history, which encourage audiences to think about the individual & collective power in shaping the world around us.
Creative team:
Margot Przymierska is a Polish-born performer and writer. Her artistic practice occupies the fault line between theater, live art and comedy. It delves into the complex relationship between the stories told by mass popular culture, historical events and Margot’s own immediate subjective experience shaped by the experience of migration. Her work challenges stereotypes, cultural representation, mixing low art with pathos. Margot’s previous work includes the UK tour of Wesele/Wedding supported by the Arts Council England, PolBud Cabaret commissioned by Polish Cultural Institute and Crossing the Line at Voila! Europe.
Pamela Farrugia is a dramaturg trained at East 15 Acting School and Birkbeck College University of London. She is a multidisciplinary artist interested in storytelling of migrant and female-led experiences.
Gonzo is a Latvian classically trained composer and multiinstrumentalist.
Mikey Weinkove is a conceptual artist, set designer and founder of The People Speak art collective known for the participatory talk show format Talkaoke.