Alice Zawadzki: Replace Your Gods
Origins Unwrapped | Artist in Residence: Alice Zawadzki
Blurring classical, jazz, folk and music theatre, Alice Zawadzki creates an elemental new song cycle inspired by her grandmother’s writing, with voices, percussion and instruments crafted from wood, water, glass and bone.
‘Take me back to the endless depths of the Lithuanian forests and I will cry that our native gods have been defeated!’ So wrote Alice Zawadzki’s grandmother, Irena, in a diary entry from the winter of 1968. In the pages that follow, she calls on the reader to challenge dogma and recognise a universal divinity running deeper than man-made deities or strict ideologies.
Seen through a modern lens, her words raise a question that still feels urgent: who or what are our gods, and could we – indeed should we… replace them?
As part of her Kings Place residency, Alice presents a new song cycle inspired by that question. If some of our modern gods are consumerism and urgency, this concert offers something slower, softer and more elemental in their place, beckoned in by a set of specially made instruments crafted from wood, water, glass and bone.
Joined by cellist-singer Midori Jaeger and drummer-percussionist Yusuf Ahmed, Alice creates a soundworld that moves between classical, jazz, folk and music theatre. The more imaginative may even sense a four-headed Slavic deity known as Światowid in attendance…
This event will last approximately 1 hour and 50 minutes, including an interval.
Concessions & Under 30s tickets
Kings Place Concessions Tickets
We want to ensure that people who may be struggling financially to purchase a ticket can still enjoy visiting Kings Place. A limited number of tickets are allocated for certain events (if the ticket type does not show in the booking pathway, it means they are not available for this event or have all been sold). Concessions tickets are accessible for people on the following criteria (for more information visit our FAQs)
- Pension Credit
- Universal Credit
- Disability Benefit
- Income Support or Job Seekers allowance
- Students
£10 ‘Under 30s’ tickets
A limited number of £10 tickets are available for certain shows to attendees aged under 30. To access Under 30s tickets, update your account with your Date of Birth. Please visit the account centre to add your Date of Birth.
If £10 tickets are available, the ticket discount will apply automatically at checkout. If the discount does not apply, this means all ‘Under 30s’ tickets have sold out for the performance.
Please note that proof of age may be requested at the venue.
Plan your visit
Getting here
Kings Place is situated just a few minutes’ walk from King’s Cross and St Pancras stations, one of the most connected locations in London and now the biggest transport hub in Europe.
Our address is:
90 York Way, London, N1 9AG.
The Venue
Our performance spaces are situated on the lower ground floor. Hall One, Hall Two and St Pancras are located in level -2, reached by stairs, escalator and lift from the ground floor entrance level.
Event Times
Door times indicate auditorium entrance times only. Visitors are welcome to enjoy the Kings Place seating areas, gallery-level art, canal-side terrace, café, restaurant and bar throughout the day and evening.
- Our events begin promptly at the advertised start time. Typically, there is no support unless otherwise stated.
- We recommend arriving in good time before the performance. The Hall doors will open 30 minutes before the performance to allow time to take your seats, or to choose a space for standing shows.
- Latecomers will be admitted at a suitable break in the performance where possible
Access
We aim to make your visit to Kings Place as comfortable as possible. For more information about the accessibility of Kings Place, including details about our Access Scheme, please visit this page.
If you would like to discuss your access requirements with a member of our team, please get in touch with the Box Office team at info@kingsplace.co.uk.
Food & Drink
Rotunda Bar & Restaurant
Rotunda, situated on the ground floor of Kings Place, offers a unique dining and drinking experience alongside Regent’s Canal. The concert bar in the venue foyer will also be open for select events.
Green & Fortune Café
Recently re-furbished and now open with a new look, the Green & Fortune Café is open for selected concerts. Serving hot and cold food and drinks, including sandwiches, salads, soup, stew and a pie of the day, alongside a choice of cakes made by the on-site bakery team. See here for selected concert dates and standard opening hours.
Alice Zawadzki
Vocalist, composer and multi-instrumentalist Alice Zawadzki becomes a Resident Artist at Kings Place with a series of ambitious projects including newly commissioned work throughout that explore folklore, ancestry and the stories we inherit.
Rooted in Alice’s Polish heritage yet drawing on traditions from across Britain and the rest of Europe, the residency weaves together music, storytelling, ritual and myth, blurring the boundaries between classical, jazz, folk and music theatre. Across three distinctive productions, Alice revisits ancient tales, pagan traditions and folkloric figures, using them as a lens through which to explore memory, identity, belonging and our relationship with the natural world.
From the immersive music theatre of Bag of Bones to the elemental sound world of Replace Your Gods, and the playful winter folklore of The Turning, each project reveals Alice’s unique ability to connect contemporary audiences with stories that have travelled across generations and borders, with a focus on collective transformation, healing and uplift.
Reviews
‘A genuine original’ The Guardian