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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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