There’s around 250 000 Polish migrants living in the Netherlands. Many of them undertake physical labor, with which they are often associated in the eyes of Dutch society. When an average Dutch person is asked to imagine a Polish migrant, they would probably see a man, plumber or construction worker, in his 20s or 30s, wearing adidas slippers over white sport socks. In Masters, Maria Magdalena Kozłowska, along with her all-Polish team, is subverting this image by turning it into a poetic, surreal, erotic fantasy.

In search of the musicality of labor, the performers work with heavy breath, exhaustion and classical singing. Between a post-soviet marxist fantasy, pagan folk ritualism and surreal eroticism, Kozłowska is inviting the viewer to a space of transformation, from which new perspectives on social relationships have a chance to emerge.

Research question: How to stage private experience of Polish labour migration in the Netherlands? How to subvert the entanglement of the body in production mechanisms?

About O. Lab
O. Lab offers the audience a peak into the theatre makers’ rehearsal rooms. Something that is normally reserved for the select few… Artists will share their research questions. As the visitor, you are invited to watch and express your valuable opinions about prototypes and works in progress. O. Lab in WORM is one big creative space and you will be sitting in the front row as the processes unfold!

“As an audience at O. Lab, you are close to the creative process of the artists. This way, as a visitor, you get a first look at a project that is still to be developed and you get into the head of the creators.” – Guy Coolen, artistic director O.