THE MAKING OF A PLAY

In this stunning theater piece, directed by Bozena Szroeder, theperformance techniques of Polish experimental theater are merged with the Borderland Foundation's dedication to building bridges across ethnic, religious, and national borders, and between older generations and the new.

The Sejny Chronicles had its premiere in 1999, and was performed throughout Poland, including the Malta International Theatre Festival in Poznan in 2002, as well as in Bosnia, Lithuania, Germany and Denmark.

The performance evolved from a 1998 exhibition, Our Good Old Sejny – postcards and photographs from the years 1910-60 from the Borderland Center collection, augmented by snapshots brought by the townspeople’s children. This prompted a competition on Sejny’s history which yielded 100 art and literary works by children, of whom some were selected to continue what became an ever-evolving project over the years.

With guidance from Ms. Szroeder the children gathered oral stories from their parents and grandparents, compiled them in their own individual mini-chronicles, drew family trees, and together drew a half-true, half-mythical plan of the town, matching the stories and legends they had heard to specific sites. Meanwhile they learned each other’s songs – Lithuanian wedding songs, Old Slavonic chants, Polish folk songs – as well as Jewish nigunim and Roma songs. A new stage in the project was to re-create in baked clay the pre-war multi-cultural Sejny, with town hall, synagogue, and Catholic and Evangelical churches – an ideal “set” for a theatrical performance.

As a further step in this on-going educational project, the production has been documented by the children in their book Sejny Chronicles, edited by Bozena Szroeder.

The performance will be introduced in La MaMa’s lobby by a photo exhibit prepared by Bozena Schroeder and photographer Stanislaw Wos (lecturer at the Warsaw School of Photography), juxtaposing old and new photographs of Sejny.

Bozena Szroeder, following pedagogical studies, has collaborated on cultural projects with Krzysztof and Malgorzata Czyzewski since 1987. With them, she co-founded the Borderland Foundation in Sejny in 1990, where she runs the Documentation Center of Borderland Cultures and is director of the children’s theater studio. She created an innovative program of intercultural education in the Borderland Center, now a model introduced in many schools in Poland. She is also co-author of a program on memory and local identity for youth – The Glass Bead Game – being realized with many centers in Poland and Europe. Bozena Szroeder is a specialist in the history and culture of the Roma.