Performance Archive
TEST 098 2024 | Philly Pack
This work is a deconstructed version of what’s to come.
A study in time, mechanics, and shifting organs.
Choreographer- Katarina Poljak in collaboration with Sydney Donovan & Kelli Thompson
Performers: Sydney Donovan & Kelli Thompson
Sound Score: Eli Henley
2024
BLACKLISTED 2023 | Icebox Project Space
As performers we are conditioned, coached, trained, groomed, to relinquish our bodily autonomy.
This performance aims to analyze and unpack “Is the context of the performer’s body set by the ideas/ morals/ opinions of the viewer? Can we perform without our idealized form itself being sexualized, fetishsized, perverted, twisted & used against us?”
Performance by: Katarina Poljak
Choreographic Score by: Katarina Poljak in collaboration with Grace Malone
Sound: William Basinski Disintegration Loops 2.1
Performed by: Katarina Poljak & Grace Malone
Projection/text by: Katarina Poljak
TW: Sexual Assault related content
Program Note: I chose to cast Grace in this work with myself, because of our particular backgrounds in dance/ performance spaces. This is a deeply personal work that stems from a traumatic sexual abuse I experienced at 19 years old. For legal reasons I am unable to name the perpetrator(s) who continue to enact systemic sexual abuse in our city.
This is Not a Toy 2022 | Vox Populi Gallery
Derived from defensive sharp objects . Feminine and deadly adapted to inflict injury when approached. Objects include bike spokes, metal layers of blades, plastic shards all with blood dripping off the ends. The sound repeats the words "this is not a toy", "this form may cause significant harm", and "do not touch". This performance is an imagined plastic human with a heart they're desperately trying to protect, removing the organ from the body and placing it delicately in a protective display case.
Created and performed by Katarina Poljak
2022
Mountain of 1 2020/2021 | Mascher Space
Trapped within a mountain of our own making, a world of isolation connected through wires.
Created and performed by Katarina Poljak
PREMIERED at Mascher's Fresh Juice Artist Showcase in 2020
Encore Performance Featured on Live TV for PhillyCaM in 2021
BODY: Unknown 2019 | Painted Bride Arts Space
Curated and Performed by: Katarina Poljak.
Anonymous and communal
Whirling through the dream of life like swarms of krill without end
Swimming in a nameless Antarctic sea into boundless ocean
All our patterns, trips, and excuses sinking into dark
blue
Nothing left except our remarkably interesting faces
Vulnerable and open
Lucky shadows on the new and improved internet
Still
Endless as the universe but without any hardware at all
A new generation of human is emerging
A kind of hybrid,
a cyborg
Part flesh, part electronic device
And in this painful period of transition
Until the kinks get ironed out
Your partner lies beside you in bed
His or her or their heart aching
His or her or their eyes closing
Turned away in frustration
More and more of us becoming
Anonymous and communal
People identifying themselves by mutating a collection of usernames
Photoshopping their selfies
The leaden suitcases filled with dreary outdated shit we've been dragging around
Every last one of us auctioning ourselves off to the highest bidder
Guarding our self images, our success and failure
I turn away from this dumb-show
And ask myself, now what
Now that I’ve figured out
This life is a dream
The world as we know it a flash in the pan
Fool’s gold
Now that I understand
Now what.
Glass Body Live Performance 2018 | The University of the Arts
Rewiring ourselves to be vulnerable, while consumerism and mass media leads us to a less “human” society. Robotic tendencies frame our personal identities and execute the truth of how we language ourselves in this hostile world.
Performers: Micah Love, Bailie Johnston, Andrew Smith, Jinsei Sato, Ada Fujita, Sav, Caroline Bradbury, Nicole Bradbury, Jamaal Bowman
Music By Noah Fawks and Sam Bekt
install 2017 | The University of the Arts
Created and performed by: Katarina Poljak