CLAY, MONIKA BŁASZCZAK
Friday 27th June 2025
Palazzo Contarini Polignac
Dorsoduro 874, 30123 Venice
Clay is a 40-minute dance performance choreographed and performed by Monika Błaszczak.
Animated by the force of love and its transformative potential in times of crisis, Clay cultivates a poetic, sensuous approach to movement. Through a choreographic language attuned to space and its many presences — visible, ghostly, and more-than-human — the work explores vulnerability, resilience, and eroticism. The body and clay serve as parallel vessels of memory and transformation: soft, fragile, and shaped by touch and time.
The performance exposes our deep, material, and sensual relationship with the body of the Earth. It is a celebration of life — an attempt to come closer to the mystery at the heart of our earthly existence. Even amid ruins, dance remains.
Set to a soundscape by Antonina Nowacka (from the album Lamunan) and accompanied by an extravagant costume and set design by Marta Szypulska, Clay invites the audience into a tender, elemental choreography of being. Presented in Venice as the world premiere, the piece also marks the inaugural production of Monika’s newly founded dance company, Monika’s Dance World.
Written by Monika Błaszczak
Edited by Dobromila Blaszczyk
Choreography and performance: Monika Błaszczak
Choreographer’s assistant: Misia Żurek
Music: Antonina Nowacka (album Lamunan)
Costume and set design: Marta Szypulska
The performance Clay is supported by: Estrada Poznańska, Voelkel Foundation, the City of Poznań, and Theaterhaus Berlin
Management: Blink Berlin
Monika Błaszczak is a dancer and choreographer whose practice reimagines the possibilities of dance as a medium of transformation that opens portals into the unknown. Originally trained as a professional ballerina, she later transitioned to experimental and interdisciplinary approaches to dance. She is the founder of Monika’s Dance World, established in 2025.
She is the creator of the movement practice Soliloquy – Hauntological Somatics, which she has taught internationally. Her performances have been presented in Europe, Asia, South America, and North America, including at Tate Modern, Victoria and Albert Museum, The Place, Laban Theatre, V.O Curations, South London Gallery, Polish Dance Theatre, and the Barbican Centre.
She holds degrees from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she studied under André Lepecki, and Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London. Her work has been supported by numerous awards and residencies, including the Young Poland Scholarship, the Young Arts Medal, NYU Performance Studies Award, and the Trinity Laban Innovation Award. She lives in Berlin and works internationally.
This project is co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland from the Culture Promotion Fund.
Cultural event of the Polish presidency of the Council of the EU.
