There’s only one way.

They are beautiful, terrifying and shocking. The music wafts and disappears. It comes back in an authoritative way, leaving no place for doubts. It becomes blasphemous litanies and shrieks. It goes and comes back. The master says something. Should we trust him? Somebody cries. Somebody whispers. Is this an actor or a spectator? (…) Is this a show? An exhibition made alive? A techno party? A fashion show? A market square festival? Hell?

I come back the next day. The choice is yours: lent or carnival. Lent – go left; carnival – go right. Carnival wages a war on lent. I start yet another walk. I look for another way. Today nobody bows at me. Somebody’s good hands show me the way out. The hands of an actor who sees my tears.

The crowd gathers in a weird space, made unreal by light, smoke and sounds of tuned instruments. Now they stand in groups, but soon they will start to pulsate. Some will stand around table stages, other will climb on them. Some will stay in the centre of events, others will choose the distant perspective of the staircase. The place will be dense with sounds, movements, and looks.

Several hundred people wander around in several hundred different ways in a closed space and at the same time. Trance music pushes them every which way. They are led by the gestures of the master of ceremony, walking on stilts and bursting with diabolical laughter. They are stopped by dancers possessed by music, teetering on the brink of dance madness. Three of them lazily stretch their bodies into impossible poses, their faces show boredom and routine mixed with amazement. Three others, aroused with passionate breaths, rub against each other so hard that they nearly bleed. They look but they do not see, their lips half-smiling. Two other dancers play chase and run: body, eyes and sight chase and slip away. They are gone now. New dancers appear on the table stages. Some try to grasp the air around them; others cut the air with sharp gestures. A female dancer breaks in convulsions. A self-centred male dancer, his mouth open with self-admiration, subjects his body to the torture of a series of poses. They are beautiful, terrifying and shocking. The music wafts and disappears. It comes back in an authoritative way, leaving no place for doubts. It becomes blasphemous litanies and shrieks. It goes and comes back. The master says something. Should we trust him? Somebody cries. Somebody whispers. Is this an actor or a spectator?

There is only one table stage left, surrounded by meek silence of prayers in single shafts of light and by the paroxysm of carnival outfits. Our own faces look at us from the walls and ceiling. Black figures move along, carrying censers and silver ash. A group of people on the table stage, nestled into each other’s embrace, scared. Bows. Applause. The end.

Is this a show? An exhibition made alive? A techno party? A fashion show? A market square festival? Hell?


I come back the next day. The choice is yours: lent or carnival. Lent – go left; carnival – go right. Carnival wages a war on lent. I start yet another walk. I look for another way. Today nobody bows at me. Somebody’s good hands show me the way out. The hands of an actor who sees my tears.

Ewa Obrębowska-Piasecka, "Gazeta Wyborcza", January 28, 2002, page 6.