The response of Polish performance artists to cultural policies during the pandemic: liminality, precarity and resilience

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines performance and theater artists’ reactions to and attitudes toward the decisive measures taken by the government to curb the spread of the coronavirus in Poland. It traces the transformation of these attitudes over the different stages of the pandemic, from the initial complete lockdown (spring 2020) to the temporary relaxation of the restrictions and up to the second lockdown (fall 2020). Our research is based on a series of in-depth interviews conducted with Polish performance artists between November 2020 and January 2021 as part of the larger research project on the pandemic in social sciences and humanities. In this article we place our discussion of the interviews within the conceptual framework of liminality, precarity, vulnerability, and resilience, in order to examine human activities in the face of unplanned and profound structural and functional changes caused by the pandemic, affecting cultural and social hierarchies and reflecting cultural policies before and during the pandemic.