Experimental Theatre


Jola Cynkutis

Biography

(Jola assisted Diane with the development of RESTRAINTS - conducting individualized training sessions and coaching the development of the piece)

Jolanta was introduced to the theater by Zbigniew Cynkutis, one of the leading actors in Jerzy Grotowski’s Polish Laboratory Theater. She participated in the Theater of Nations project with Zynkutis and Rena Mirecka (another member of the Polish Laboratory Theater).Starting out as Cynkutis’ student, Jola became his assistant and collaborator.

She also studied with Zygmunt Molik, (a member of the Laboratory Theater and specialist in voice training). When Cynkutis founded the Second Studio of Wroclaw in the mid-eighties, Jola became one of its principal actresses and oversaw the company’s training. She has led many training sessions and workshops internationally, including at Warwick University (U.K.), Stratford-upon-Avon (U.K.), MIT (Boston), SUNY (Buffalo). She was joint-leader of an international project Quo Vadis Europe (1997), has taught acting in Tokyo and India, and served as acting coach to the National Theater in Poznan.

Jola has appeared in The Song of Songs directed by Jacub Kolski (1987); Story of the Silent Bird directed by Jeznach(1987), and Anhelli, Gogol’s Dead Souls, and Martin Buber’s Elijah all directed by Miroslaw Kocur in 1988. She also helped Khalid Tyabji create his solo performance, Foolsong (1987-9)

In 1989 Jolanta Cynkutis began work, which continues to this day, developing and researching the methods she had inherited from Zbigniew Cynkutis and the Laboratory Theater. Between 1989-1994 she developed and directed productions of Don Quixote, Nachtbar, Euripedes’ Medea and The Journey with the Tak Theater in Germany. In 1997 she collaborated with Khalid Tyabji once again in the creation of another solo performance, Man of the Heart.

In 1994 she performed as a paratheatrical performer at the Festival of Fine and Visual Arts in Germany. In 1994 she performed in the SEKTA theater company’s acclaimed production Orbius Tertius (directed by Lech Raczak) in Poland, and worked with Raczak again on Stone and Suffering in Italy in 1996. She won several festival awards for her solo performance Mona Rogers in Person by the Californian playwright Philip Dimitri Galas (1996-8). In 2000 she collaborated with Tyabji on their joint performance, On the Other Side of the Light.

Khalid Tyabji

Biography

Khalid Tyabji’s theatrical career began accidentally while he was a student at the University of Delhi, and continued at the Theatre Action Group under Barry John, where his roles included the Chorus in Ted Hughes’s Oedipus, Pantalone in The Servant of Two Masters, Alan Strang in Equus, Rama in a workshop production of the Ramayana, General Pizzle in Theodore Roaszak’s Pontifex, the Herald in Marat/Sade, the Fool in King Lear, and Gregor Samsa in Berkoff’s adaptation of Kafka’s Metamorphosis.

On leaving the company, Tyabji began leading workshops with groups and institutions, and was encouraged and stimulated by the Calcutta playwright, actor and director, Badal Sircar. During this period he traveled among the tribal areas of Central India developing a form of theatrical play and exchange that later became the basis for his solo show Tomfoolery, which was performed in many countries, including America, Britain, Poland and Sweden. It was also developed as a means of therapeutic interaction at psychiatric hospitals in London and at a center for autistic children in Warsaw.

Khalid was invited to join the Second Studio at Wroclaw, established by Zbigniew Cynkutis (a leading member of Jerzy Grotowski’s Polish Laboratory Theatre) in the former Laboratory premises. Tyabji participated in productions – Turandot (1986), Dead Souls (1988), and Martin Buber’s Elijah (1988) -- and led training with the international company. He also developed his solo performance Foolsong with Jolanta Cynkutis, which he performed in Poland, the U.K., Sweden, Iceland and Greenland before taking it back to India.

Khalid has led many training workshops and, on his return to India, was appointed leader of training at the National Repertory Company in New Delhi, and subsequently Visiting Professor at the National School of Drama between 1991 and 1997. He also acted as joint leader of Quo Vadis Europe, an international theatrical training project.

Tyabji created the Theatre Trust in Bangalore in 1997, and the following year founded a theatre company in a centre he designed and built near Hampi in South-Central India. Some of his writing on this and other subjects has been published in the Seagull Theatre Quarterly and in an independent publication by the Theatre Trust.

In 1997 Khalid returned to Poland to collaborate with Jolanta Cynkutis on a new solo performance – In Search of the Man of the Heart. In 2000 they collaborated again on a joint performance entitled The Other Side of the Light. He performed in Lech Raczak’s Child of the Stars 2001 (created for the Malta Festival in Poznan, 2000).

Khalid has also appeared in three films: Mira Nair’s Kamasutra, The Return of Sandokan, and Frederic Fougea’s Hanuman. He is currently collaborating with Jolanta Cynkutis on a new performance as well as on translating and editing a book of writings by her former husband and his former teacher, Zbigniew Cynkutis.