Filmoteka Muzeum

The film Headache is an attempt to put life in order again, a sophisticated, existential choreography, which at each moment strikes a different stylistic tone: grotesque animation, surrealistic phantasmagoria, corporal play reminding us of experiments in body art.

In time with music - which is a variation of chosen fragments of Krzysztof Penderecki's pieces from the 60's - the dance pantomime is taking place and tells us the story of self-destructive impulses of the body, the story that reaches its conclusion with a deceptive happy end. In its formal aspect Headache represents the idea of female figure confronting the black abyss. It is not, however, usual black background, it is rather a magnetic inside of black hole, the perfect space of non-existence. This blackness, playing an important function in Aneta Grzeszykowska's films concentrates the viewer's attention on the body, highlights it as a central problem, as a theoretical object.

Headache begins with a take where we stand face to face with the artist holding a stick of dynamite in her mouth and igniting the fuse. After the explosion, her body returns as a disjointed set of fragments — legs, arms, torso, head — which begin a life of their own; a life autonomous to the extent that at some point they “rebel” against the head. They attack it violently, hitting and kicking, and finally compose a new Aneta, with legs in the place of arms and arms in the place of legs — quasi goddess, quasi monster.

Music: Krzysztof Penderecki: Anaklasis (1959), Fonogrammi (1973), Polymorphia (1961), String quartet No.1 (1960), Symphony I: Dynamis I - Arche I (1973)

Dancers: Aleksandra Lemm, Weronika Pelczynska, Marzena Roguska, Anita Wach

Cooperation: Jan Smaga