Magdalena Tuka

Actress, performer

Projects (6) Photo (59) Video (12) Media responses (13) Text (2)
No Exit 2025 Anita Wach, Magdalena Tuka, Dagmara Bilon, Špela Trošt, Marcandrea Bragalini
How to Explain a Monument to a Herd of Hares 2022 Anita Wach, Ines Šimunić, Kristina Aleksova, Lučka Centa, Magdalena Tuka, Olja Grubić, Teja Bitenc, Anja Novak, Tjaša Črnigoj, Nohemi Barriuso, Špela Trošt, Marcandrea Bragalini
National Body Art 2022 Anita Wach, Magdalena Tuka, Kristina Aleksova, Olja Grubić, Špela Trošt, Marcandrea Bragalini
The Ninth 2016 Bojan Jablanovec, Anita Wach, Gregor Zorc, Jaka Lah, Loup Abramovici, Magdalena Tuka, Ana Čigon, Barbara Stupica, Igor Remeta, Marcandrea Bragalini, Špela Trošt, Teodora Simova, Maya Ivanova, Torben Ibs, Steffen Georgi, Pia Brezavšček, Nenad Jelesijević, Jedrt Jež Furlan, Marta Ankiersztejn, Hanna Raszewska, Magdalena Zamorska
Shame 2011 Bojan Jablanovec, Katarina Stegnar, Gregor Zorc, Anita Wach, Magdalena Tuka, Darko Japelj, Marie-Luise Stentebjerg, Marcandrea Bragalini, Igor Remeta, Ajda Tomazin, Fanni Nánay, Ana Schnabl, Zala Dobovšek, Špela Trošt
Casablanca Therapy 2010 Anita Wach, Bojan Jablanovec, Gregor Zorc, Magdalena Tuka, Emma-Cecilia Ajanki, Marie-Luise Stentebjerg, Marketa Faustova, Marcandrea Bragalini, Antonio Baroni, Zala Dobovšek, Adriana Světlíková, Janko Oven

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Magdalena Tuka

Actress, performer

My practice is rooted in Jerzy Grotowski’s notion of Art as vehicle. I began my career working for ten years full time as an actor in the Warsaw-based Studium Teatralne company of Piotr Borowski, a long-term associate of Grotowski during his late Pontedera phase. For me, the essence of this formative work was in its physical training. A rigorous investigation into the relationship between the body and space, between precision, improvisation and intuition; the aim, a creative onstage existence, a continual search, on a moment by moment basis, for what and where the performer’s attention is.

In a break from this tradition, I undertook what became a series of collaborations over several years as a performer with Bojan Jablanovec’s Via Negativa theatre company in Ljubljana. In my opinion, the importance of the VN approach is its focus on communicating to the audience via an “essential” creative message devised from the personal experience of the performers.

On these foundations, I began initiating projects. In 2012, with an intuitive trust in the creativity of opposites, I incorporated the organisation Ja Ja Ja Ne Ne Ne and devised a succession of shows with dancer Anita Wach, in collaboration with sound designer Opaean. My process of creative thinking often starts from the vision of a character who represents a complex of ideas, problems, irresolvable circumstances.

I am interested in exploring situations where the body is thrown into heightened modes of operation determined by self-imposed conditions. Treated rather instrumentally. In service of ideas, meanings. Often naked, exposed, trapped in uncomfortable circumstances, but not humiliated. And no religionism.

Work has been variously supported through a succession of grants, scholarships, residencies, co-productions and festival selections, presented in theatre, gallery, cinema, church, and online; in Poland, UK, Netherlands, Denmark, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, USA and Germany.

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