International Journal of Social Science Studies Vol. 4, No. 10; October 2016 ISSN 2324-8033 E-ISSN 2324-8041 Published by Redfame Publishing URL: http://ijsss.redfame.com 127 The One Who Knows: On the Archetype of an Old Woman on the Basis of the Paratheatrical Activities of Ewa Benesz Katarzyna Kułakowska Correspondence: Katarzyna Kułakowska, Institute of Polish Culture, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland Received: August 31, 2016 Accepted: September 12, 2016 Available online: September 27, 2016 doi:10.11114/ijsss.v4i10.1849 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.11114/ijsss.v4i10.1849 Abstract This paper portrays Ewa Benesz, a great individuality moving within a borderland between theatre and para-theatre, literature and the art of telling stories. In her activities, she refers not only to the melody and rhythms originating from various cultures but also to traditional, everyday practices guaranteeing the generations durability, such as baking bread, producing wine or pressing olive. In this ethnography I do not only describe my experience of being a participant of her original para-theatre workshops – In the act of creating – at her artistic residence turned into a hermitage in Sardinia, but I also interpret her artistic biography as a figuration of the One Who Knows, La Que Sabe according to the South American mythology, the archetypical woman “as old as time” who preserves the female tradition like a chronicler of the female practices using a special kind of language – the language of theatre, and possessing a special kind of imagination – the “anthropologic imagination”; and finally, having an experience which is the experience of a laborious and endurable creation of the theatrical trend of counterculture in Poland. Keywords: Ewa Benesz, paratheatre, counter-culture, the one who knows, the anthropology of experience, women‟s studies, autoethnography 1. Introduction “I am not an actress; I sometimes happen to be an actress”, Ewa Benesz states, sitting on a sturdy trunk of an old tree which is standing in front of her Sardinian house, and which has a huge crown, densely woven of thick leaves, dark green all-year-long and almost velour in their texture. (Note 1). The 7-day paratheatrical workshop which she organises three times a year for a group of several dozen people coming from all parts of the world, among whom I also had a pleasure to be, has just been completed. “I am not a story-teller; I sometimes happen to be a story-teller. I am not an educationalist; I sometimes happen to be an educationalist”, she declares. She is undoubtedly a great individuality associated with Polish counter-culture theatre, moving within a borderland between theatre and paratheatre, literature and the art of telling stories, who in 2013 celebrated her 70 th anniversary, coinciding with the 50 th anniversary of her artistic activity. In this ethnography, I describe Ewa Benesz‟s experience of being an actress associated with Polish counter-culture theatre, interpreted by her in the form of biographical narrative and theatrical activities she conducted. I interpret her artistic biography as a figure of the One Who Knows, La Que Sabe according to the South American mythology, the archetypical woman “as old as time” who is a guardian of the mystery of a cyclical nature of life. The article aims at restoring the memory of the woman artist who has not been regarded as crucial or even have been omitted in prior synthetic and historical takes on theatre. 1.1 The Unpopulated Territory of Feminine Counter-culture Theatre: Context and Significance of the Research This ethnography should be perceived as a part of my broader study on reinterpreting the history of Polish counter-culture theatre by dismantling its male-oriented perspective. The role and experiences of women in the Polish counter-culture theatre is a subject which still waits for its monograph. I reduce the term counter-culture to the specific moment in the history of culture encompassing youth protest movements which rose in America and almost all European countries at the end of 1960s (Roszak 1969). Counter-culture appeared in Poland with delay – its roots date back to 1970s and its heyday – to that decade's first half. Surprisingly, in the presence of so many undertaken research works and practices of re-reading the history of Polish