Walenty aka Valentine
The poet+clown+saxophonist Chad Matuszak Piechocki is an art-maker living in Milwaukee. He is most at home imagining the possibilities of what can happen in blank spaces.
Chad aka Valentine (now Walenty), cut his teeth while climbing on ladders, blowing the wrong notes into his tenor saxophone, Walentynka, and writing. He is inspired by artist-friends who collaborate with him year after year. They are really good at playing music, writing, dancing, singing, clowning, video editing, making beats, etc.
The Milwaukee Fringe Festival has presented his annual Valentine Series each of the festival’s seven years. The made from scratch Valentine show is a multi-discipline, theatre mosaic designed in collaboration with Milwaukee artists.
As a producer, presenter, writer, performer, stage and house manager, he has been involved with hundreds of shows during his 20+ years in Milwaukee. His first play was self-produced at Char Manny’s Soulstice Theatre in 2004. In 2008, the Boulevard Ensemble Studio Theatre and Mark Bucher produced Piechocki’s “Eureka!” Piechocki’s dance-poem, “Love in a Time of War” was performed at Danceworks’ Art to Art in 2012 in collaboration with choreographer Petr Zahradnicek.
Chad challenges social norms with his DIY approach to devising new work; exploring existential questions; and acknowledging the complexities of doing theatre on stages built upon stolen land.
Chad aka Valentine aka Walenty tenaciously pursues what’s on the other side of normal. His arts training happens while making shows each year. His personal mission is to “honor the dead while serving the living through the principles of art and peace.”
