Magdalena Slowinska Janowicz

Between 2003-2007, Magdalena was a founding manager and director of an independent theatre "Na Murku" (On the Wall Theatre) - based in Gorzow Wielkopolski, in Poland. Her original drama play titled "Pasek" (Strap), was awarded the jury's prize at the 6th Festival of Polish Independent Theatres in 2005. Magdalena collaborated with Kreatury Theatre, Machulski Theatre Centre, Splash & Ripple (Bristol), and London based The Bones theatre - founded by Krystian Godlewski and Kamil Adamus. She studied playwriting and screenwriting under the mentorship of Maciej Wojtyszko (theatre, film and television director, writer, author of plays, comics and animated films, known as the creator of the famous Bromba). She trained as a performer and has one year physical theatre training from the Bones Theatre (Stanislavski and Grotowski method, with focus on self-knowledge, awareness, body work, expression, and synchronization of body and voice). Magdalena wrote, directed and produced nine original theatre plays. She founded The Other Symmetry Theatre in May 2018. Magdalena has MSc degree in Human-Computer Interaction from UCL. Prior to that she studied BSc (Hons) in Psychology - University of Westminster in London, Game Design (TAMK, Tampere, Finland), MA Social Psychology (SWPS, Poland) and Occupational Therapy (Medical College, Poland), and she completed a Creative Writing for Performance course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (2021).

Her academic and practice-based research has centred on product design education, accessibility technology for blind and partially sighted people (BPS) and makerspace movement. BPS people experience high rates of unemployment and can be excluded from design-based work due to perceptions that sight is a requirement. Prop design for films, TV and the theatre is one such area dominated by a sighted workforce and approach. Magda contributed TinkerProp, a web-based prototype of an accessible voice-user interface (VUI), to help create initial proposals for work in the field of prop design. The project partners involved the Global Disability Innovation Hub and Extant Theatre. Project page: www.tinkerprop.com.

Her most recent original play was shortlisted for the UCL's New Writing Festival and produced by the UCL Drama Society team. Magda's credits include writing, directing, music and design (costume, prop, stage). The play performed for two days in January 2020 at the Etcetera theatre in London.

Magda's practice and approach are constantly evolving and her current interests focus around bioart, immersive storytelling, multimedia, posthumanism, and social and data science.

She lives in London.

Credits

Writer, Director, Producer, Actor, Prop Maker, Stage Designer, Performer 2003-2007, 2018-2022.

https://namurkutheatre.tumblr.com

https://youtu.be/G9B5VHZKc9o

Training

She recently completed creative writing and directing courses at Guildhall School of Music & Drama and Young Vic. Creative Writing for Performance course delivered by Maddie Rice - known for her work on Fleabag (2016), Every Blank Ever (2018) and Handy (2019), and Tom Machell - an award-winning writer and actor, his latest short film A Spoonful won Best Short Script at the UK Film Festival, Los Angeles Motion Picture Film Festival and Changing Face International Film Festival, his debut play Ticker, was published by Play Dead Press and completed a run at the Underbelly, Edinburgh Fringe in 2019 to critical acclaim; and Core Directing Skills led by Katie Mitchell.