The Gardzienice Cosmos evolved into a multi-storeyed dramatic construction. One would hesitate whether to call this event a spectacle as it comprises so many heterogenous forms. It is true that we were offered the fragments of performances, but there were also conversations, games and even a lecture. I would insist that Cosmos is eventually a consequently conceived spectacle. Not a collection or selection of fragments, but a concentrated and composed work with precisely elaborated climaxes, with time for a breath and finally with an open final. What was this performance about? Gardzienice told us about themselves, that is for sure. The story was chronological – introducing a theatrical and historical order (…)
However, the most significant message conveyed was not connected with the staging or talking about the company. In various ways Gardzienice attempted to pass to the audience several basic assumptions constituting the foundations of their work and , in Włodzimierz Staniewski’s opinion, art in general.
The first assumption is a need of the spiritual elation, the strain transcending art. Essentially almost all the elements of the performance can be related to religious tradition. Sometimes they border on blasphemy, sometimes they are on a threshold of prayer, sometimes they are a pagan sorcery. (…)
Another assumption is the past, that is tradition. The world of folk culture, the disappearance of which we witness, the world which we hold in contempt, can still offer us much. It is the land one cannot return to, but it is still a treasury full of astonishing contents; the land in which the sense of harmony has been preserved.’ – Tadeusz Kornaś after the premiere.