- 1996
- Europe
A student of Kantor and Grotowski, Jozef Markocki studied at the State Higher School of Theatre in Warsaw before enrolling at the city’s Music School. From 1993 until 1997 he worked with Henryk Tomaszewski’s Pantomime Theatre (the founding father of Polish pantomime), learning a technique which, unlike the methods of Decroux and Lecoq, is rooted primarily in dance rather than theatre. From 1994 to 1996 he taught Pantomime and Mask Theatre at the Institute for Theatre and Puppetry. He subsequently became a professor in the Psychology department at the University of Warsaw, and the Technische Universität in Dresde and Görlitz. During this time, he also ran pantomime training courses and worked as a director both in Poland and further afield. In 2002 he won the “Golden Needle”, Warsaw’s most prestigious audience-voted award.
In 1996 he joined forces with a group of professional actors to found Teatr Formy (“Theatre of Form”), inspired by the tradition of modern pantomime pioneered by Henryk Tomaszewski. The company’s productions are often inspired by works of literature, including myths and legends from different cultures, charting the eternal struggle against mankind’s innate imperfection.
