Natalia Korczakowska
Artistic Director
Natalia Korczakowska is a renowned Polish theatre director recognized for her interdisciplinary practice that profoundly merges theatre, music, and visual arts. Her work critically examines how individuals lose their sense of reality and champions theatre as a social playground for disarming manipulative narratives and technological tools that sustain illusions of control.
Since 2016, she has served as the Artistic Director of STUDIO teatrgaleria, one of Poland’s leading experimental theatre spaces, which critic Marc Swed of the Los Angeles Times described as having a “Fluxus vibe.”
Her directorial vision consistently tackles complex contemporary and philosophical themes, often adapting radical literary sources. Major works include: Solaris. Report (after Stanisław Lem, TR Warsaw), The Crash (after J.G. Ballard, STUDIO teatrgaleria), Ajax-The Machine (after Sophocles), The Devils VR (after Dostoevsky, STUDIO teatrgaleria), Witkacy/Two Headed Calf (RedCat, Los Angeles), Hunting Wasps: A Story of Death and Life (STUDIO teatrgaleria) which German critic Thomas Irmer deemed an “exploding documentary theatre, reaching into completely different areas of showing social pain.”
Her recent 2025 premiere, AlphaGo_Lee: Theory of Sacrifice (STUDIO teatrgaleria) marks a significant shift into exploring the human-AI encounter.
The performance is a theatrical reconstruction of the legendary Go match between the AI AlphaGo and champion Lee Sedol. Developed in collaboration with Google DeepMind, London, and multimedia artist Marc Da Costa (ONX Onassis Studio), the project forges a new digital scenographic language. This integrates advanced AI tools, interactive animation, live video, and installation to address core questions of artificial general intelligence (AGI) and human sacrifice.
Korczakowska has collaborated with prominent institutions worldwide, including the CalArts Center for New Performance and Redcat Theatre in Los Angeles, La MaMa Theatre in NYC, and the Battersea Arts Centre in London. She also co-founded the international Open Studios platform with Anna Lewanowicz, in collaboration with Onassis Stegi in Athens.
Korczakowska’s opera productions include W. Rihm’s Jakob Lenz and S. Moniuszko’s Halka, conducted by Marc Minkowski for the National Opera in Warsaw. She directed the experimental movie-opera Lost Highway by Elfride Jelinek and Olga Neuwirth for the New Horizons International Film Festival in Wrocław with “a theater stereo effect” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung ), acclaimed as a unique example of modern critical art, skillfully made and masterfully executed. In 2020, she was recognized as one of the most interesting opera directors in the world by the prestigious magazine Opera Now UK.
In 2020, she was recognized as one of the most interesting opera directors in the world by the prestigious magazine Opera Now.
She recently formalized her engagement with technology by completing the Driving Innovation with Generative AI program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
