How many times can you relive the same break-up? During the Malta Festival we invite you to a unique theatrical experience. The Second Woman, a 24-hour spectacle - after shows in London, New York and Vienna, among others - comes to Poland for the first time, in a new, locally constructed version with Magdalena Cielecka.

The structure of the show is based on the repetition of a single stage situation - a brief encounter between two people at the moment of parting. Each scene lasts about ten minutes and is performed with a different scene partner, without rehearsals or prior arrangements.

At the climax of each scene, the actress's partner makes a decision: she utters the phrase 'I have always loved you' or 'I have never loved you'. The repetition of the same situation does not lead to uniformity, but reveals differences in behaviour, emotions and relationship dynamics, transforming the performance into a process of exploring intimacy, power and communication.

The action is recorded by cameras and transmitted to a screen, allowing the scene to be experienced simultaneously on a micro scale - through the details of gestures, gazes and reactions - and in the long duration of the whole performance.

Nat Randall and Anna Breckon's project has been presented at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York, the Holland Festival in Amsterdam and the Wiener Festwochen, among others. In each production, the play functioned as a locally rooted performative experiment, revealing distinct social tensions and contexts.

Tiago Rodrigues' The Distance is set in the year 2077, in a world increasingly marked by a climate crisis. Humanity already functions on two planets - Earth and Mars - and father and daughter live in separate realities, separated not only by the vastness of space, but also by different visions of the future. The performance tells the intimate story of a relationship in a world that is no longer shared.

Tiago Rodrigues - one of the most important contemporary theatre makers and artistic director of the Festival d'Avignon - builds a precisely composed story of love, responsibility and intergenerational tension. Distance touches on themes of emancipation, self-reliance and unspoken declarations, posing the question of how much future generations will still be able to communicate with those who preceded them.

The minimalist form of the performance is based on a revolving stage divided into two spaces, symbolically corresponding to Earth and Mars, and a close relationship between text, movement, light and sound. The changing rhythm of the performance emphasises the tension between what is intimate and close and what is gradually moving away, building the meditative tone of the whole.

Distance is a story about the relationship between father and daughter, but also about responsibility for the future in a world affected by environmental crisis. The presentation of the play in Poznań will be the Polish premiere of the Malta Festival co-production and the only Polish stop on the show's international tour.

La Mort de la Mer is an audiovisual opera with an experimental, immersive structure in which music, performance and visual theatre form a single stage environment. The performance is cyclical and unfolds as a poetic, ritualistic process, with the audience experiencing it from different perspectives - in close proximity to the action and with the possibility of changing the point of observation.

Guiding the story are two symbolic figures, Moon and Sea, which open up a space for the audience to reflect on time, memory and man's relationship with the cosmos and nature. The whole is arranged in a meditative tableau suspended between the intimate and the planetary. The musical layer of the performance combines CocoRosie's characteristic language - balancing on the borderline between experimental music, electronics and songs - with an immersive form of experience.

The central theme of the performance is the relationship between man and nature in times of ecological crisis. The motif of the 'death of the sea' appears here as an experience of loss of balance and mourning for a world that is disappearing, but also as an impulse to redefine man's relationship with the surrounding environment.

The Polish premiere of the play will be attended by Justyna Wasilewska - one of Poland's most important theatre actresses, associated among others with TR Warsaw. She has worked with Kornél Mundruczó (The Particles of a Woman), René Pollesch and Anna Smolar. She is also known to a wider audience for her work in Jan Holoubek's Heweliusz series and the film Serce miłości [Heart of Love] directed by Łukasz Ronduda.

Since its premiere at Berlin's Sophiensæle, the work has been presented at the most important festivals and dance stages in Europe, and the show at the Malta Festival will be its first presentation in Poland. The performance departs from the classical model of watching dance, proposing an experience based on duration rather than narrative or closed dramaturgy.

Dziarnowska builds an open structure in which meaning emerges from the careful observation of movement and relations between bodies. The performers remain in constant motion, and the lack of a clear beginning and end shifts the emphasis from watching the show to co-presence and experiencing time together. The relationship between the dancers and the audience is based on proximity and attentiveness, gradually loosening the boundary between stage and audience.

Here, the body becomes a tool of relationship - with others, with space and with one's own experience of time. The recurring theme of the song What the World Needs Now builds tension between nostalgia and the intensity of movement.

Ewa Dziarnowska's performance This resting, patience addresses the theme of loneliness and the need for physical closeness. The choreographer performs in a duo with Leah Marojević, relying on the art of improvisation and drawing on her extensive performance experience. The minimalist and somewhat austere set design and limited use of props is complemented by music created by Krzysztof Baginski and light by Jacqueline Sobiszewski.

What happens when a concert is no longer just a concert? On 21 June at Lake Malta we will open the Malta Festival with the concert "For Love!" - an open-air event that will be closer to a performance than to a classical concert.

Artists representing different sensitivities and ways of talking about emotions will meet on stage: Grzegorz Turnau, Ralph Kaminski, Natalia Szroeder, Jakub Józef Orliński, Anna Maria Jopek, Natalia Przybysz, Anita Lipnicka, Zalia and Krzysztof Zalewski. The musical layer is the responsibility of Paweł Tomaszewski, Nikola Kołodziejczyk and Adam Sztaba, with Natalia Kukulska taking artistic care of the whole.

The narrative layer will also be an important part of the evening. In between acts, there will be short acting forms that add to and expand on what is happening in the music.

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21 - 28 June 2026