Joanna Kołaczkowska was a cabaret and theater actress, songwriter and radio presenter, beloved in Poland. For the last two decades, she has been artistically associated with Kabaret Hrabi, which this year changed its name to “hrAbi” to pay tribute to the deceased actress. Joanna Kołaczkowska passed away on July 17, 2025, at the age of 59. She was struggling with cancer.
The remaining members of the band, Dariusz Kamys, Łukasz Pietsch and Tomasz Majer, sat down on the “halo tu polsat” couch on Friday morning to remember the artist in a conversation with Ola Filipek and Olek Sikora. At the beginning of their conversation, the station broadcast a specially prepared film in which colleagues from the industry spoke warmly about Joasia.
“Aśka was inimitable,” Maciej Stuhr began in the material. “She had great knowledge and intuition about people.”
“She could change into someone completely different in a second”, “She never crossed it in such a way that it was distasteful”, “When she left the stage she was so modest, as if she didn’t realize what she was doing” – we heard in the material.
If the light went out, she could entertain the audience alone in the dark for 20 minutes. When her dress broke, instead of worrying about it, she went on stage and immediately announced it to the audience.
“Joasia Kołaczkowska is still with us,” Olek Sikora began.
“It is difficult to come to terms with the thought that she is gone,” admitted Dariusz Kamys. “Rationally we realize this, but mentally there is still disbelief.”
The band’s members announced that they would continue their activities in the current composition. They don’t want to replace their long-time friend with someone else. Instead, they will occasionally invite guests to perform. Recently, they decided to change the name of the cabaret from “Hrabi” to “hrAbi” to honor Joasia Kołaczkowska.
“We are leaving the name because we are still ourselves – just differently. We talked about it many times before Asia’s tragic passing. She would also like it. We are only changing the spelling of the name,” they wrote on October 5 on their Facebook.
“On January 10, we plan to premiere our new program (most likely titled ‘A guide to being a man’) It will be a program for five guys. We can already reveal that the special guests will be Wojtek Kamiński and Antek Machoń,” they revealed in the entry.
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