There is nowhere I can find where it might say the location of the performance in this recording, but since the company are based in Warsaw, Poland, I can only assume it to have taken place in a local theatre.
The Chorus Of Women (or in Polish, Chor Kobiet) are a group of female performers of all ages and backgrounds who come together under Marta Gornicka's direction and tutelage to perform her self-devised choral speaking episodes.
This one, Magnificat, is a 36 minute rant exploring (for 'exploring' read 'denouncing') the Catholic Church's claims over the bodies and fates of women. Gornicka has taken texts from multifarious sources including The Bible, Euripides' The Bacchae, Polish poets, The Liturgy, newspaper articles, sacred music, pop culture and recipes! and turned the whole into a piece of performance choral speaking. A cocophony of rythmic words, sound and movement empowering women, gloryfying feminism, and attacking Catholicism all in one fell swoop.
It's angry, it's powerful, it's from the heart. Starting with a guttral whisper, these 25 women speak in unison, in groups, individually, they move as one in military precision, and sometimes they even sing too, and when they do their voices are pure, clear and harmonic.
Directed live whilst they are performing is Marta Gornicka, making the whole seem either like an orchestra with a conductor, or a rehearsal. The rehearsal idea is further enhanced by their costumes. All of them wear dressed-down, comfy rehearsal gear (t-shirts and jean shorts or similar) but all in different shades of blue. And they are all barefoot. I am uncertain what message this idea of costuming was meant to represent: individualism or conformism; ordinary or unique. But it looked ragged.
The performance however was not ragged, but a polished and skilful presentation which grabbed you by the throat and made you stay and listen. Using ideas of plainchants and responses from the Catholic mass, as well as choral snippets putting a contemporary slant on them all; this whiuspering, wailing, screaming, singing, non-stop, full-force declamation won't let you exhale until they have finished telling you what they intended telling you!
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 24/5/20
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