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April 2025
During the residency in HELLERAU, the choreographers and performers Romuald Krężel and René Alejandro Huari Mateus will work on the artistic research project "Ecological Proletariat". The aim is to deepen and link two areas that Romuald Krężel has focussed on in recent years of his artistic practice and research - the ecological discourse and the social class discourse in the context of the creation and production of performing arts.
What kind of class struggle is behind the ecological crisis? Who can afford to be ecological today? How does climate change become a class struggle, and what do the ecologies of the different classes look like? How do ecological issues relate to contemporary choreography, both on an artistic and production level? Who can follow the example of choreographer Jérôme Bel and give up flying in order to reduce their ecological footprint, and who cannot do this in the performing arts? And does reducing one's carbon footprint even matter after we learn that the concept was invented as part of BP's big greenwashing campaign in 2004-2006? What invisible social class structures are behind the moral discussions about the renunciation of labour strategies in the arts that largely produce CO2? The research is inspired by the book "The Climate Change as a Class War" by Matthew T. Huber, who analyses the climate crisis from the perspective of class struggle. "Ecological Proletariat" aims to fill a gap in the prevailing discourses of contemporary choreography and performance, in which questions of ecology and social class are treated separately and rarely together.
Biography
Photo: Dorothea Tuch
Romuald Krężel, born in Poland, is a choreographer and performer in Berlin. He studied choreography and performance at the Justus Liebig University in Giessen and acting at the Film School in Łódź. His work combines choreographic practices with visual and performative elements and thematises work, resistance, class struggle, climate change and relationships between humans and non-humans. His performances and installations have been shown at the "Biennale Warszawa", the "Palais de la Porte Dorée" Paris, the "Akademie Schloss Solitude" Stuttgart and in Berlin venues such as HAU, Sophiensaele and Uferstudios. He has also received numerous art and research grants.
Biography
René Alejandro Huari Mateus has lived in Germany for almost a quarter of a century, yet her pronunciation reveals a different origin - something that she finds beautiful in others but perceives as a flaw in herself. She studied dance, performance and choreography and weaves her practice at the intersection of these arts. She also designs lighting and costumes and enjoys writing texts. The relationship between dance and choreography is inherently violent. Positioning oneself against violence without showing it is an impossible endeavour. But it is precisely in this impossibility that a tension grows - an aesthetic force, a gesture that eludes and yet remains perceptible. A field that appears not in images, but in their absence.
Her works have been shown in theatres, museums, gardens and courtyards, at festivals and in public spaces, in hidden cellars, forgotten halls and halls that were only valid for one night. They also found space in digital worlds, for communities that are not bound to places but exist in networks. She is proud to have managed to make a living from art. It is always hard work. And she knows that when cuts are made, she will be the first to suffer. But she hopes that it will still be possible. Despite everything.
