May 16, 2023

STILL STANDING — MONUMENT IN MOTION

Event program

As part of the MultiMemo project, on May 16, 2023, the Still Standing performative action took place in urban space in Warsaw. The event started in front of the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes and ended on the terrace above the Muranów Cinema, located opposite the former great synagogue.
“Still Standing” is a performative activity in which the body is treated as a living sculpture created in relation to a place. The action enters into dialogue with the historical choreography of Israeli choreographer Noa Eshkol, prepared by her for the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and presented in 1953 at Kibbutz Lohamei Hageta’ot (Ghetto Fighters) in Israel.
This year, 70 years later, the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, FestivALT, the Masovian Cultural Institute and PERFORM prepared it in a new version as part of the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. It was conceived as a commemoration of the destruction of the Great Synagogue, which took place on May 16, 1943, and thus as a gesture of denying the intentions of the Nazi torturers that accompanied its destruction.
Using movement, choreography and narrative, Still Standing asks the question of care as a possible response to what remains of history – a care that takes us not only to the past, but also to the present and towards the future.
80 people were invited to the project – residents of Muranów, but also other people interested in recalling memory as part of the program commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

📸 M. Jaźwiecki (POLIN)

Organization

Partners

Sponsors

  • The project is funded by the European Union (CERV-2022-REM) and involves nine European partners: FestivALT, UMF, Zapomniane Foundation, JCC Warsaw, the Formy Common Foundation, the Foundation for the Documentation of Jewish Cemeteries, CEJI – A Jewish Contribution to an Inclusive Europe, the Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg and the Hochschule für Jüdische Studien Heidelberg.