\\\ born in 1990 Jelenia Góra, Poland. Awarded***** theatre & opera director, author of many installations and performances in Poland and Japan (in collaboration with Festival/Tokyo); she was studying Drama directing at the The Ludwik Solski State Theatre School in Kraków. Previously, she graduated Journalism and Social Communication with specialization in Creative writing at the University of Wrocław. She is interested in creating post-post-post- postdramatic theatre. Political, but intense and intimate, balancing between dark humor, sincere emotional experience and a surrealist, abstract world. Szpecht often explores non-human perspectives and unobvious ways of describing reality. She often combines elements of movement practice, film work, documentary archives, visual arts and contemporary music. When war in Ukraine started on February 24th 2022, she decided to become a Cyber Elf and dedicate herself to support Ukrainian people and to fight with Russian disinformation, fake news and propaganda. For ÆFEKT Magda created Cyber Elf performance, a lecture about her cyber-activism in the face of the war (co-produced by Nowy Teatr in Warsaw & SIRENOS Festival in Vilnius).
***** Jury Prize HAU 100°Berlin Festival 2015 for dolphin_who_loved_me, best director at Boska Komedia, Kraków 2016 for Schubert. Romantic Composition for 12 Performers and a String Quartet, Best Director of 8. M-Theatre Festival 2017 in Koszalin for In Dreams Begin Responsibilities and many more.
I have this feeling, that theatre lost the confrontation with reality. It’s an entertainment for peaceful times. It’s reserved for elites. When I make a theatre performance, approximately sixty people a month will watch it and they always have to pay. My stories on Instagram (@magdaszpecht) are being watched by at least 1000 people and I can share my thoughts with them for free. I have this feeling, that I’m stepping outside of art world and thanks to that I can reach more people on more democratic level. Of course – because of algorithms – it’s not always the case, but there’s still much more feedback and frequency of communication with the audience, than I could achieve with theatre.
Magda Szpecht
Magda Szpecht x ÆFEKT:
CYBER ELF lecture performance [2022]
діти. CRIME WITHOUT PUNISHMENT video-essay [2023]
supported projects:
SPY GIRLS theatre performance [2024]