Santarcangelo Festival 2022: Director Tomasz Kireńczuk on Repetition as Resistance

The 52nd edition of the Santarcangelo Festival, one of Italy's most important theatre festivals, took place in July 2022 in Santarcangelo di Romagna. In an interview at the festival's close, artistic director Tomasz Kireńczuk reflected on his first year leading the event. Kireńczuk, a Polish playwright, activist, and theatre critic who founded Teatr Nowy in Kraków and curated for Dialog – Wrocław International Theatre Festival, emphasized the festival's role as a political agora. He highlighted the theme of repetition running through many works, including the continuous jumps of Paweł Sakowicz, the reiterated steps of Mónica Calle's Bolero, and the sensual box steps of Alex Baczyński-Jenkins. Kireńczuk described repetition as a revolutionary practice of resistance against a hostile time. He noted the delicate balance of opening the festival and the importance of creating an atmosphere of deep listening connecting artists and audience. The director spoke about adapting to the spatial constraints of the small town, citing Teresa Vitucci's DOOM, a feminist perspective work set in the Eden garden, which was staged at Parco Baden Powell despite technical challenges. Kireńczuk stressed his commitment to preserving artists' specificities and supporting emerging Italian and international creativity through residencies. He anticipates the next edition will continue addressing issues of gender identity, social inequalities, and violence, but will start from zero, guided by intuition.