The Revolution of Dwarves II.

Interview with Major Dwarf

The first escapade in your life was…

I was a school student then. Once I said that I would not participate in the May Day Demonstration as it was voluntarily. There was a scandal. On May 1, I took some medicine drops from a small bottle. I approached a platform, where political figures were standing and told a security guard that I brought drops for heart ailment for my father who is on the platform as he needed them. I was allowed to enter. They set their eyes on me for some time, but I approached some man and began to discuss the weather with him. They thought that he was my father. The demonstration went on; some workers were throwing flowers onto the platform. I picked the flowers up. Then an announcer said my that school was on the way. I told people on the platform that my fellows were coming and I had to greet them. I was between Soviet and Polish officers and began to throw flowers. People from my school were shocked. However, our principal turned out to be very smart as he later told that I was a young journalist and was invited to ascend the platform.

How old were you?

Eighteen. That was the beginning. Then we helped opposition a little, however I found that all funny. For example, counterspies were after me... When seksots followed opposition activists the latter were nervous. But I was laughing. In the period of Solidarity, we organized New Culture Movement at the university. I wrote a manifest of socialist surrealism, in which I declared myself to be a successor of the communist classics and stated that socialist realism had been replaced with socialist surrealism. Everything that takes place in socialist surrealism, even a policeman patrolling the street, is a work of art... During strikes, we issued a satirical newspaper entitled Orange Alternative. Strike organizers wanted to remove us somehow because we made fun of them too.

When did the dwarves appear?

When General Jaruzelski introduced martial law and people wrote slogans on the walls, which were then painted over. There were lots of paint stains. And we began to draw dwarves over those stains. After Chernobyl, real dwarves appeared on the streets. Before that I had distributed leaflets saying that dwarves were seen downtown. The dwarves grew up because they had eaten Chernobyl mushrooms. The leaflets asked people to greet the dwarves. Of course townspeople came, but most of them were policemen. We prepared many interesting things but the police arrested the dwarves. That was funny.

You were going to endow all nationals with toilet paper...

Yes, we made a leaflet saying that we would give out toilet paper. The police came again. They began to search people’s bags to see if there was any toilet paper. They chased after me as I made off on a bicycle covered with strips of toilet paper and they could not catch me. I forgot that the bicycle was without brakes, gathered speed, and rode into a police car. The policemen were so nimble that they caught me in flight. The one who interrogated me asked if I was not ashamed to look like that. I answered that I did a happening. He wrote that down and later, on his way home, he bought a plinth. The other officer asked, “Where are you going with this plinth?” The policeman answered, “I am going downtown to do a happening.”

Why the dwarves?

At that time, I was wondering what to do to those stains that were almost everywhere, and the thought burned in my head. I drew just to cover the stains with something. Later, during a street happening, we put on dwarf hats. The police managed to make our actions impossible. Then next time we distributed our hats. I thought that the police would take the hats off but they took not the hats but people in those hats! We repeated the actions and each time more and more people put on those hats. And each time, there were more and more policemen. As a result, people ceased to be afraid of the police and a shock of the martial law was over.

So, the police were part of your actions?

Yes! Oh, we even organized the Day of Seksot. One time, when the policemen again detained me, they were complaining, “Why do you always interpret us as a crowd in your actions? It is dishonorable to treat us like that. We also have some spiritual life!” Then, they asked what the next action would be. I answered – as if they had prompted it – that I would organize International Seksot Day. I would invite you, the KGB, the FBI... They were outraged, “Not the FBI! You should be happy that in Poland you have such seksots as us who let you organize such actions. If you invite the FBI you will have no chance.”

Was that Seksot Day a success?

Some of us wore black glasses, others had newspapers with eyeholes. I came in a black hat and was dressed as a Czarist intellectual. The funniest thing was that some people were trying to behave like real seksots. The police were confused as they did not know which of them were real and who were not! Those in black glasses apparently were not real but others were not so easy to distinguish. Besides, they asked real agents to show their papers and led the police as real agents, “Take this one, take that one!” They turned everything upside down.

Which of your actions do you remember best of all?

It was when I dressed up in women’s clothes. The probem was as soon as the police noticed me they immediately rushed to catch me. And I dressed myself up to be unrecognizable: a wig, powder, high heels. I went out of doors and took out a small fife. There also were people in different costumes – some cosmic creatures. And here I begin to play the fife. Two police officers approached and said, “Lady, please go home and play there. I was silent in order not to let them hear my voice and understand who I was. Finally, they lifted me holding under the arms and brought me into their car. They were malicious and wanted to put me down in the middle of a puddle. I somehow wiggled out. They said, “You don’t want to dampen your ass, baby doll?” And added, “So old and so dull.” I was so nervous and answered, “You, boors, how are you talking to a lady?” One of them looked closely at me and shouted, “Ah, it’s a pederast!” He called a driver, “Look, we have a pederast here.” The driver looked at me and answered him, “Something’s wrong with you.” And I winked towards him pulling down my skirt… The first one cried at me, “Say something!” And I went on showing off in silence. Suddenly, the second one shouted, “You are talking nonsense and all my cosmic creatures have run away!”

How did they register you at the police station? As a man or woman?

They were so confused that forgot to take my documents so I simply walked out and that’s all. That was the only time in my life that I felt myself a woman. That was impressing.

You seem not to know fears.

If I ever felt fear it was not a fear of being arrested. I was much more afraid of lack of props, or worried if someone would forget to bring something or would not come. Such fears of aesthetic character were much stronger that fears of the police.

Is Orange Alternative still active as a movement?

Only some individuals. The team of the 80s broke apart. Some of them created a group entitled Performed Cocks. That was a catastrophe for me because I know them as serious people, professionals; and suddenly, they begin to behave like children of sixteen. It is hard to contact them and the music they make is not so good. It’s a pity also that they do not want to work with young people to share the experience, which all of them have. I think that they failed to make something when they were young punks... This is why they now return to this.

Wroclaw looks like a legendary place: Grotowsky’s theater, your movement…

- Now in Wroclaw’s downtown there are restaurants. No Grotowsky, no Tomaszewsky’s great pantomime theater, I am not there either. It is a provincial town now. In Wroclaw, the majority of houses belong to the municipality and the authorities have all the power to do whatever they want. Once they organized an exhibition of Orange Alternative unknown to me. They did not know about the Internet. So, there was a scandal, I wrote a letter to the mayor. Then, they held a Dwarf Exhibition. They said that those were Maria Konopinska’s dwarves and not only Major’s. They published my posters not knowing that I had created them. They again disgraced themselves. I tried to improve the situation; talked to the mayor who every time sent me to some other chiefs. Now they probably feel completely hurt by me because I wrote a book, which is not entirely about them - it is a humoristic book - in which I say that they begin to use Orange Alternative for an advertising campaign. But they do not want me to have influence on it. Why? They have a budget and they want to share the money between them. The old Wroclaw no longer exists. This again proves that people must not have too much power.
As far as I know there is the monument to a dwarf in Wroclaw. What would a monument to Major look like?

Someone has already projected one. A pedestal with me sitting on the brink. I have a beard and wear a hat. It is inevitable, I think. However, I hope for a long life. I do not want this monument to appear but have no influence. Its none of my business. It is of those people who will live in the future. If I become a spirit I will not scare people as a dreadful ghost... I want to make monuments not to myself but to other dwarves in other places. By the way, it could be good to make one in Kiev: a dwarf who is appearing from an orange.

01.02.2006