“Choreographic TNT…”

Fast Forward Weekly, Calgary

“W&M Physical Theatre are the experts on stark beauty. Their excerpt of Bone Songs: The Return … was layered with poetic and austere images. The highly visual aspect of the work was matched by the authenticity of their physicality. Their performance called us to attention with its clarity and dynamic. The duet moved through a dance vocabulary characterized by dramatic shifts in energy states. W&M struck the balance between design and physicality that we often search for as choreographers, offering up work that can be felt with all of the senses.”

Naomi Brand, Dancers’ Studio West, February 2009

Just Po Prostu is a story about the relationship of two people: their sacred and profane … sensitivity, eroticism, and loneliness; their inability to communicate and their inability to live without each other. The production uses a number of interesting choreographic solutions – the introduction of potatoes on the stage, with their Polish cultural conditioning, was surprising and visually stimulating at the same time. The work as a whole was full of atmosphere and visual interest. The audience responded enthusiastically.

Margaret Tokarz , "Kultura" - May 2009

“More than just a refined physical skill of high leg lifts and steps in perfect sync, beauty becomes an expression of what is most real, most human. Beyond challenging ideals of dance and physical theatre, Monteros and Mochniej’s creative motivations have evolved over the past two decades.”

Andrea Campbell, Fast Forward Weekly, May 2007

"What can I say about the solo Just Po Prostu? I am Just speechless. It is danced with unusual precision, even mesmerizing magic… There is nothing superfluous, each movement seems to be part of a meticulously arranged pyramid, in which no one element destroys the whole. The dance was able to communicate passion, love and pleasure. … I believe that there are performances that can change people’s reality or perception of the world. "Just Po Prostu" is exactly that. "

Gabriel Zuk , Critical Dance, Lublin, November 2007

"Life is Good. Sometimes Sun, Sometimes Rain A beautiful performance was shown by W&M Physical Theatre. To taste it ---technically and choreographically! Thank you, God, the creators have the skill to have fun and play with what they are doing…. As in life, very distant themes/plots intersect—all these themes/ plots sometimes really sweep you away but also, after a moment, they give you permission to forget...

Marta Kazimierska, GAZETA WYBORCZA, Poznan, Poland August, 2006

A Lyrical Affirmation of Life “A dark stage, square platforms, on top of them, in the darkness they stand….to prepare the public for everything which will come after. After was only dance… Expressive movement , physical, with a simplicity and complexity which makes Life is Good a universal choreographic language. At the beginning, I tried to translate the meaning of the scenes into words, but quickly understood that this is not the point. The point is to receive the beauty of the gesture and intensity of emotion. The performance is built through several acts…on one side there was delightful fluidity and lightness of movement, on the other side, it was shockingly powerful and dynamic. The artists have successfully created a story full of a lyrical affirmation of life.”

Kar, GLOS WIELKOPOLSKI, Poznan, August 2006

“Mochniej and Monteros have created their original style, technique and method of the work…” “Monteros and Mochniej dance soul, and their poetic is not classical-ideal but deeply human, intimate, a bit grotesque. Therefore a category of beauty is not classical, but beauty means rather true, naked, revealed.” „Whispers” was compared to theatre works of Jerzy Grotowski. Indeed this dance has a quality of a total act, but the technique and aesthetic differ. Performances of W&M Physical Theatre represent a unique, original line of discovering through the body a spiritual sense of theatre (…)”

Adrianna Kabza-Biernacka, 2003

"Wojciech Mochniej and Melissa Montoros are skillful and sensitive dancers. They seem to have the gift to create tight and stylistically strong works which hit precisely and deeply in the viewers' subconscious."

Jukka O. Miettinen, HELSINGIN SANOMAT, April 19, 2002

“Rough and expressive gestures, stories of loneliness- these elements often characterize the work of Dance Theatre of Gdansk. The Return is a choreographic story about two people, condemned to be together in an empty world. They meet each other under a single tree, almost like parents of paradise. Their destiny is always balancing between good and evil, between mutual support and trying to dominate…There are no clear answers…But there is only one moment where the dancers for a short time find the same step, movement, harmony. Even if this one small moment, the most beautiful in all the choreography- is gone, for this one moment you can withstand difficulties, pain and suffering.”

Jaroslaw Zalesinski, DZIENNIK BALTYCKI,Poland, May, 2001

“...Monteros and Mochniej create an enormously sensitive and physical journey into intimacy and isolation. Like two wonderfully compatible children of paradise who have strayed from their sheltered world, Mochniej and Monteros offer an astonishingly beautiful interpretation of vulnerability. The speech of these two children of nature who cling so tightly to each other cannot get past their lips. Words remain faint whispers, as if getting stuck halfway out. Mochniej and Monteros grope for each other like newborn children. The man carries the easily frightened woman, then the woman carries the man, helping him move toward the threshold to a new world.”

Anne Valtonen, AAMULEHTI, Tampere, Finland, April 23, 1999

“...both duets of Monteros have equally powerful atmosphere...The dancers are marvelous performers. The second work of the evening, Whispers, is a sensitively wretched duet between a man and a woman. The dancers are like two children lost in a strange land. They hold onto each other, and when alone, gulp like fish on dry ground. After the ritual cleansing, the couple walks toward an unknown darkness. This may seem cliché, but it works....”

Jussi Tossavainen, HELSINGIN SANOMAT, April 23, 1999

“Dance Theatre of Gdansk is searching for their own means of expression, and it is an unusually creative search. One thing is sure…Monteros and Mochniej have a great deal of themselves they want to give. They have talent, great power, imagination, and can realize their own professional vision through and through.”

Ewa Solinska, ZYCIE WARSZAWA, Warsaw, Poland, March, 1999

“Instinctive movement flows from the body as though from the viscera-unchecked, without consciousness. The body of the dancer rids itself of all barriers so that the audience can deal with the coursing of internal impulses made visible- the spiritual spilling over to the physical expression of the body. This idea of ‘dance of the body’, I feel, is closely related (reminiscent) to the foundation (soil) of theatre work of Jerzy Growtowski…”

Joanna Chojka, GAZETA MORSKA, June 1997