Ceremonial inauguration of the 2023/2024 school year
On 4 September 2023, the inauguration of the new school year 2023/2024 took place at Warsaw Montessori High School. In keeping with the tradition of our school, the ceremony was graced by two special guests: Dr. Magdalena Piekorz, acclaimed director and film and theater screenwriter, and Krystyna Gierłowska, director of the Aurea Porta Foundation, which cares for the legacy of Bogusław Schaeffer.
The first to speak was Dr. Magdalena Piekorz, who shared with the students her extensive experience including the production of award-winning feature films (Pręgi, Senność), documentaries (Chicago, Labyrinth, Znaleźć, zobaczyć pochować) and numerous theatrical productions (Doktor Haust, Midsummer Night’s Dream) and musicals (Oliver, Pinocchio). She talked about her artistic fascinations – directors who created the Moral Unrest Cinema trend (Andrzej Munk, Krzysztof Zanussi, Krzysztof Kieslowski) and the work of writers Wojciech Kuczok and Wojciech Tochman, encouraging students to familiarize themselves with their output. The lecture was a great apologia for creative action and encouraged students to seek their own voice, cultivate an attitude of nonconformism and follow their own intuitions.
Afterwards, Ms. Krystyna Gierlowska talked about the activities of the Aurea Porta Foundation, whose mission is to continue and popularize the work of Boguslaw Schaeffer, composer, musicologist, playwright, graphic artist, philosopher, educator – a contemporary renaissance man, as Ms. Krystyna called him – “a classicist-avant-gardist”, “an avant-garde classicist”. Ms. Krystyna talked about the Schaeffer Era project, encouraging students and teachers to participate in the numerous artistic initiatives undertaken by the Aurea Porta Foundation.
The speeches of the guests gave us a lot to think about, were received by everyone with enthusiasm and will certainly remain long in our memory.
