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e‑mail: dorotakolodynska@gmail.com
instagram: dorotakolodynska_theatre
links:
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BIO
Dorota Kołodyńska, Polish stage designer and costume designer, working for theater and film, professor (PhD) at the Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw, where she heads the Costume Design Studio. Graduate of the Faculty of Graphic Arts and The Department of Scenography at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, where she studied under the tutelage of renown artists such as Janusz Stanny, Teresa Pągowska, Andrzej Sadowski, Marcin Jarnuszkiewicz. Her education in fine arts was completed by a year-long scholarship in stage design in Italy’s Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti in Milan (TEMPUS European Community Programme for University Studies). For her accomplishments in theatrical design she received the Teresa Roszkowska’s Award.
The works of Dorota Kołodyńska are marked by great diversity; as a stage designer and/or costume designer she contributed to almost a hundred theatrical productions, employing various aesthetics and different stage stylistics. She has worked for many prestigious theater companies including National Theater, Polski Theater, Studio Theater, Dramatyczny Theater, Polonia Theater, Ateneum Theater, Współczesny/Contemporary Theater, Polish Royal Opera House in Warsaw, Polski Theater in Wrocław, Stefan Jaracz Dramatic Theater in Łódź, Wybrzeże Theater in Gdańsk, Musical Theater in Gdynia.
From the beginning of her career Dorota Kołodyńska had the privilege and the pleasure of working with acclaimed directors, such as Izabela Cywińska, Piotr Cieślak, Andrzej Domalik, Jan Englert, Krystyna Janda, Jarosław Kilian, Kazimierz Kutz, Agnieszka Lipiec-Wróblewska, Ryszard Peryt, Andrzej Seweryn, Grzegorz Wiśniewski, and many others. Her long-term cooperation with esteemed Polish actor and director Zbigniew Zapasiewicz resulted in many widely acclaimed theatrical productions, staged mainly in Współczesny/Contemporary Theater in Warsaw and Television Theater.
Dorota Kołodyńska’s artistic personality was also shaped by involvement in young theater movement of the 90s, primarily in cooperation with director Zbigniew Brzoza. Their productions were staged mainly at Studio Theater in Warsaw, and were focused on the works of contemporary artists, such as avant-garde Austrian writers Handke and Turrini, as well as the modern classics: Kafka, Tchekhov and Gombrowicz. Of particular importance was her collaboration with an eminent French director, actor and playwright Jacques Lassalle, associated with Comédie-Française in Paris.
Between the years 2005 and 2015 she created set designs for five productions of theatre classics directed by Lassalle: Shakespeare’s King Lear, Molière’s Tartuffe, or The Impostor and The School for Wives, Marivaux’s The False Servant and de Musset’s Lorenzaccio, all staged in National Theater or Polish Theatre in Warsaw. These performances were designed and produced in accordance to classical tradition of European theater and with faithfulness to historical details. Her interests in historical tradition of the French theatre brought her together with artists specializing in baroque productions – theatrical director Ivan Alexandre and stage designer Anthony Fontaine – during staging of Pierre Corneille’s Le Cid for Polish Theatre in Warsaw.
An important part of Dorota Kołodyńska’s theatrical activities has been designing costumes for spectacular productions of Roma Musical Theater in Warsaw, Polish number one musical theater – primarily in a cooperation with the director Wojciech Kępczyński, a man responsible for Roma’s success. Kołodyńska has designed the costumes for the non-replica productions of some of the world’s most popular musicals, including Grease, Cats, Singin’ in the Rain, Disney’s Aladdin Jr. (re-staged for the Musical Comedy Theater in St. Petersburg), Mamma Mia!, Elton John and Tim Rice’s Aida, as well as some well received Polish musicals – Peter Pan (directed by Janusz Józefowicz), Polish family classic The Academy of Mr. Kleks and the hit musical The Pilots (directed by Wojciech Kępczyński). She worked with Roman Polański on much anticipated Polish premiere of the musical comedy Dance of the Vampires, based on Polański’s movie The Fearless Vampire Killeres, a show very popular in all continental Europe. She also designed costumes for feature films of Piotr Dumała The Forest and Ederly and for several theatrical productions of Polish National Television.
Dorota Kołodyńska’s costumes have been presented at numerous exhibitions, such as: Global Qipao Invitational Exhibition, China National Silk Museum, Hangzhou (China), 2020, Costume at the Turn of the Century 1990–2015, The A. A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum, Moscow (Russia), 2015, From Irydion to Irydion. On the 100th Anniversary of Polski Theatre in Warsaw, Theatre Museum, The Redutowe Halls, Grand Theatre–National Opera in Warsaw, 2013, La bella semplicità, Theatre Museum, Grand Theatre–National Opera in Warsaw, 2012.
