Interdisciplinary performance starring: Jaśmina Polak, Jan Sobolewski and Angelika Kurowska with videos and music by Karolina Mełnicka. The performance is based on an in/famous story of Margaret Howe Lovatt, who conducted research on dolphins’ ability to communicate in the English language which took place in a secret NASA-funded laboratory established by Dr John Lilly in the Caribbean in the 1960s. Lovatt lived for six months in a facility called Dolphin House with Peter the Dolphin. Soon an intimate, sexually motivated relationship between the human and the dolphin came into being. After the experiment was cancelled, the dolphin committed suicide. In Dolphin_who_loved_me elements of documentary theatre are interconnected with new media and movement. Original underwater recordings of sounds of the dolphins as well as audio snippets of instructions delivered by Margaret, available courtesy of John Lilly’s Estate, provide the project’s audio score.

Creators about their project:

“The theme of the relationship between human beings and animals and their mutual interaction is timeless. It was not until the twentieth century that anthropological and biological research provided the evidence of the genetic and behavioural similarities between living creatures. In Dolphin_who_loved_me the history of the secret laboratory in the Caribbean and the relationship between the young researcher and the dolphin provides a point of narrative entry into the story of the interweaving of science, metaphysics and the borderlines that humanity is underpinned by.”

video/music
Karolina Mełnicka

production
Szymon Adamczak / Kolektyw 1a

Performed at among others 2015 Malta Festival in Poznań, 48h Chrono Festival in Marseilles, Hebbel Am Ufer in Berlini, Fuchsbau Festival Hannover, Festival of New Dramaturgies in Bydgoszcz and the Divine Comedy Festival in Cracow.

Performance was awarded the Jury Prize at 100 Grad Festival Berlin in 2015.

The project was developed in the course of the theatre residency at 2014 Sopot Non Fiction Festival.