Theatre of Democracy: Lukasz Twarkowski

‘Theatre is an experience. A performance is never just an image.’ Łukasz Twarkowski is one of the most compelling theatre makers today, always trying to push the boundaries of the art form. In conversation Łukasz Twarkowski.

At the latest Holland Festival, Łukasz Twarkowski made a strong impression with his overwhelming multidisciplinary production Rohtko, exploring the concept of originality and forgery in the art world, inspired by a fake Mark Rothko sales scandal. In an earlier edition of the festival in 2023, Twarkowski organised with Respublika a six-hour utopian rave Het Parool called ‘an experience like no other’. Twarkowski’s work can rightfully be called groundbreaking.

The originally Polish theatre maker creates interdisciplinary performances at the intersection of theatre, video art, and performance art. His work explores major philosophical questions of our time, including human consciousness, the rise of AI, and the place of the human being in the late capitalist world. With his work, Twarkowski tries to find new ways of storytelling that do justice to how the contemporary individual thinks and experiences the world. Because in a world flooded with images, traditional theatre is no longer up to that task, according to Twarkowski.

This event is the first episode in a new series at De Balie, featuring conversations with leading European theatre makers about their work and vision. At the heart of the series lies theatre as a democratic space: a place where audiences are invited to reflect on what remains unspoken in society, and where art confronts the most urgent questions of our time.

Łukasz Twarkowski is a creator of multimedia performances combining theatre and visual arts. He places his projects in the context of extending reality through multimedia. A crucial element of Twarkowski’s creative work is investigating the ability and limitations of theatre as a medium and tool of communication. By permanent deconstruction of narratives, questioning the fixed habits of the audience and by meaningful usage of new media, Twarkowski creates a new, original language of stage performance based on multimedia and, more widely, digital technologies. In using these, Twarkowski analyses and observes increasingly complex relations between the Real, the Symbolic and the Imagined.

His projects are being programmed at the most important festivals and stages around the world, among others: Odéon – Théâtre de l’Europe, Ruhrtriennale, New York Skirball Center , Piccolo Teatro de Milano, Festival de Otoño de Madrid, Wiener Festwochen, Southbank Center London, Onassis Stegi, Taipei Performing Arts Center, Holland Festival, Théâtre de Vidy, Thalia Theatre, Barbican London, Seoul Performing Arts festival.