ABOUT US
Fat and Dumb (detailed biographies of each artist below)
A duo formed by Patrycja Kowańska (Fat) and Dominika Knapik (Dumb).
Patrycja Kowańska, born in 1991 in Łódź, is a dramaturg, writer, and performer. She is a graduate of dramaturgy at the Directing Department of the Aleksander Zelwerowicz National Academy of Dramatic Art in Kraków. Her portfolio includes original theatrical works as well as numerous collaborations with artists across disciplines.
Dominika Knapik, born in 1979 in Kraków, is a highly acclaimed choreographer, director, and performer. She graduated from the Acting Department of the same Academy and was nominated for the Paszport Polityki Award in 2015 for her choreography in dramatic theatre.
The artists established a close collaboration several years ago, creating performances both for institutional theatres and the independent scene, including Tiki and Other Games (2021), VALESKA, VALESKA, VALESKA, VALESKA (2022), and Hotel H.***. They also co-created autobiographical solo performances: Agon (2020) by Knapik and Furor (2023) by Kowańska.
As a duo, they took their collaboration a step further by appearing together on stage. For the trilogy developed since 2023—Very Funny, Very Sad, and Very Cheap—they coined the term “performative epigram", a short-form hybrid performance concept combining elements of stand-up comedy, living tableaux, rap and sung fragments, unconventional choreography, and the live sharing of their laptop screens documenting the creative process.
In the Very Trilogy, Fat and Dumb construct a tragicomic, bold, and taboo-free narrative about the friendship of two freelance artists navigating the precarious theatre market. As independent freelancers, they operate in a constant pursuit of grants and subsidies, approaching the search for success with irony. Their stage presence draws inspiration from Shakespearean fools—reimagined here as female fools. Through this figure, the artists perform their own privacy, which in their work is always political. They explore the body, engage in non-obvious dialogues with cultural texts, and reflect on the absurdities of institutional theatre life.
They are also deeply engaged with socially oriented work. As Fat and Dumb, they created Penthesilea. Reconstruction of the Body of the Amazons (2023), inviting onto the stage women with lived experience of breast cancer.
Fat and Dumb received several awards, including the Grand Prize and Journalists' Prize of the Shakespeare OFF Competition at the 27th Gdańsk and II Award at the OFF Actor’s Song Review in Wrocław. Their productions Very Funny, Very Sad, and Very Cheap were presented at leading Polish festivals, including Boska Komedia, Warsaw Theatre Meetings, the Retroperspectives Festival in Łódź, QueerFest, and Open’er Festival in Gdynia.
In 2024, the duo was nominated for the POLITYKA Passports.
Committed to Fat and Dumb's independent artistic practice, Kowańska and Knapik jointly established the Kreatura Foundation and launched the podcast “Fat and Dumb ON AIR”, available on Spotify and YouTube.
DOMINIKA KNAPIK
Choreographer, director, and performer. Graduate of the Stanisław Wyspiański National Academy of Dramatic Art in Kraków (formerly PWST), Acting Department, specialization in dramatic acting (2002). Recipient of numerous scholarships, including DanceWeb in Vienna (2007), ArtsLink in New York (2009), and a scholarship from the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (2011), as well as artistic residencies such as Tanzhaus Düsseldorf.
She has received multiple individual awards, including the Golden Mask Award for Leni Riefenstahl. Episodes of Amnesia, the Award of the President of the City of Rzeszów for choreography for Portrait of a Lady, and an award for choreography for Baba-Dziwo as part of the Classics Alive Competition (2019). She has also received collective awards, including Tukan OFF/PPA Wrocław for Not Me and First Prize in the New Situations Competition at Malta Festival Poznań (2008) for keret.
In 2015 she was nominated for the Paszport Polityki Award in the Theatre category for her choreographic work in dramatic theatre. Between 2007 and 2015 she co-founded and worked with the artistic collective Harakiri Farmers, producing numerous interdisciplinary projects presented in Poland and internationally, including at the Polish Dance Platform, HAU Berlin, Malta Festival, and Bonn International Dance Solo Festival.
As a choreographer, she has collaborated for many years with leading Polish theatre directors, including Jan Klata, Remigiusz Brzyk, Monika Strzępka, Ewelina Marciniak, Paweł Miśkiewicz, and Iga Gańczarczyk. In recent years she has worked extensively in Germany with artists such as Jette Steckel and Julia Wissert, at venues including Schauspielhaus Bochum, Schauspiel Dortmund, Schaubühne Berlin, Deutsches Theater Berlin, and Thalia Theater Hamburg. Productions featuring her choreography have been presented at Theatertreffen Berlin, Salzburg Festival, Ruhrfestspiele, Ruhrtriennale, and Aranya Theater Festival.
She is one half of the dramaturgical–choreographic–directorial duo Fat and Dumb, which she co-founded with Patrycja Kowańska in 2023. Together they created the Very trilogy, for which they were nominated for the Paszport Polityki Award in 2024. She is Vice President of the Kreatura Foundation (Łódź).
Since 2016, Knapik has also worked as a director. Her directing credits include Bang Bang (Stefan Jaracz Theatre in Łódź, 2016), Baba-Dziwo (Dramatic Theatre in Wałbrzych, 2019), the choreographic monodrama Agon (Łaźnia Nowa Theatre, 2020), and Tiki and Other Games (Wrocław Pantomime Theatre, 2021). In 2022 she directed VALESKA, VALESKA, VALESKA, VALESKA with the Sticky Fingers Club collective and HOTEL H****, developed in collaboration with HERTZ HAUS. Agon and VALESKA… were presented at the Polish Dance Platform 2024.
Her most recent directing work includes Very Ibsen, produced at the Contemporary Theatre in Szczecin. She is currently working on Very Hamlet, scheduled to premiere in April 2026 at the Polish Theatre in Poznań. www.dominikaknapik.com
PATRYCJA KOWAŃSKA
Dramaturg, playwright, performer, and theatre director. Graduate of the Stanisław Wyspiański National Academy of Dramatic Art in Kraków (formerly PWST), Directing Department, specialization in theatre dramaturgy (2018). One half of the dramaturgical–choreographic–directorial–performative duo Fat and Dumb, co-created with Dominika Knapik, with whom she has worked closely since 2020. President of the Kreatura Foundation based in Łódź.
She is a laureate of several competitions for theatre artists, including Modelatornia at the Jan Kochanowski Theatre in Opole, Placówka at the Theatre Institute in Warsaw, and New Generation at Scena Robocza in Poznań. Her work The Seagull. Five Seconds with Chekhov received a distinction during the Young Directors’ Forum at the Academy in Kraków (2015). As a finalist of the programme Strangers at Home. Around March ’68 by TR Warszawa and the POLIN Museum, she directed Second-hand ’68 (work-in-progress presentations, March 2018).
As a translator and dramaturg, she collaborates with the German collective kainkollektiv (Burn out city, Golden Age of Extreme, La la liki land), presented at venues including Ringlokschuppen Ruhr, Łaźnia Nowa in Kraków, the Old Theatre in Kraków, and Ruhrfestspiele. Over the last decade, she has worked as a dramaturg with directors and choreographers in Poland and abroad, including Paweł Świątek (The Lower Depths after Maxim Gorky, Zagłębie Theatre), Cezary Tomaszewski (Theory of the Sad Boy, Komuna Warszawa), Baxi Ostrowski, Weronika Pelczyńska, and the feminist practice initiative Kuliści and Refraction. Choreography of Gazes at the Theatre Institute in Warsaw.
She is the author of the theoretical work The Movement of the Dramaturg. Towards a Toolkit for the Dramaturgy of the Body, Installation, and Performance, excerpts of which were published in Didaskalia (nos. 151–152/2019) and in the Academy publication Dramaturgy. A Guide. She is a recipient of scholarships from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (2020), a two-time scholarship holder of the City of Kraków (theatre and literature), and a beneficiary of a project under the National Recovery Plan.
In 2023 she received an artistic scholarship from the City of Łódź to write the play Orpheus, which was subsequently distinguished in the AURORA Dramaturgy Competition. She is the author of the performance Furor, marking her debut as a performer and addressing the issue of fatphobia.
In 2023 she co-founded Fat and Dumb with Dominika Knapik, with whom she created the Very trilogy. Very Funny received the Journalists’ Award and the Grand Prize of the Shakespeare OFF competition at the 27th Gdańsk Shakespeare Festival, while Very Sad won the Second Prize OFF at the 44th Actor’s Song Review in Wrocław. In 2024 the artists established the Kreatura Foundation. Very Cheap, produced within the Foundation and the OFF Poland programme of the Theatre Institute with funding from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, was presented at, among others, the Gdańsk Shakespeare Festival and KTO Theatre in Kraków.
As Fat and Dumb, the artists also address social issues, notably in Penthesilea. Reconstruction of the Body of the Amazons, created at Scena Robocza in Poznań, featuring non-professional performers—women with lived experience of breast cancer. In 2024 the duo was nominated for the Paszport Polityki Award. In October 2025, Kowańska premiered her solo performance Lezbianke, developed during an artistic residency at the Festival of Many Cultures in Łódź. The latest production by the dramaturgical–directorial duo operating in repertory theatres as Kowańska/Knapik is Very Ibsen, created with an ensemble at the Contemporary Theatre in Szczecin. Their next work, a paraphrase of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, is currently in development and will premiere next year at the Polish Theatre in Poznań. www.patkakowanska.com
