Those verses by Kazik somehow came to mind: “It all repeats itself cyclically. A time of hope, a man of iron...” And I could end this column here, because two words are enough for a wise head, but suddenly I realized that very few people in Bolesławiec know the theatre animator Aneta Ćwieluch. And they have no idea why I, paraphrasing Wyspiański, see her Quarrels as venal.
In the 2018 election year, convinced of her artistic independence, Aneta Ćwieluch from the county Youth Cultural Centre, together with Karol Stasik and a mime troupe, fought against President Piotr Roman. In that weak campaign, Roman’s opponents saw the Glinoludy parade as a socially resonant issue.
The event, then called Glina Show, returned to Bolesławiec in 2018 during the Ceramics Festival after five years of absence. The mime troupe—Małkowski, Rudyk and Ogrodnik—defended it against the “theft” allegedly committed by municipal officials and their superior, namely Roman. Six young people from Mrs Ćwieluch’s theatre studio painted themselves black. According to the animator, the young people did so of their own free will. They walked around as black, sad Glinoludy, accompanied by Bernard from Bolec, a journalist documenting this end of the world of art in all its forms.
The mime troupe lost the election. Piotr Roman received 60% of the votes. People came to Glina Show happy that they could once again cover themselves in slip in the city of ceramics. And they had a great time. I wrote about the whole story of the black Glinoludy from Ćwieluch’s studio some time ago in a column: White and Black Glinoludy, or What Matters in Bolec.
Later, as a result of Karol Stasik’s masterful strategy, Piotr Roman also took over the county executive’s office, and Stasik parted ways with the position of county executive. Aneta Ćwieluch, meanwhile, found herself in the county cultural centre, under a new director and a new county executive, subject to the “seizure of enemies,” and to this day she continues her fight for independence. Artistic independence, of course.
I have no idea what artistic paths led Aneta Ćwieluch under the protective wing of Kornel Filipowicz, a theatrically kindred spirit and director of the municipal BOK–MCC. An ordinary woman cannot always grasp the labyrinths of the artistic paths of geniuses.
From 2018 to 2024, the theatre animator trod this labyrinth like Harry Potter in the Goblet of Fire, and in 2024 she won the Tournament Cup: she put on a lavish event for the president with more patrons than there had been black Glinoludy in 2018!
And only Bernard from Bolec, the photographer, unfailingly kneels before art wherever it happens to take place. In 2018 he photographed black Glinoludy, and in 2024 he snapped pictures of other theatrically gifted children standing on another, municipal stage... After all, Piotr Roman recently paid people from Bolec nearly PLN 5,000 for a Q&A. And as Kazik sings: “I bow to the revolutionary leader to the waist. The patron gives gold, the patron demands…”
Grażyna Hanaf
