WE ARE IN YOUR HALL, IN YOUR STREET, YOUR ...

Presentation of the Contemporary Experimental Czech Theatre in the Balkans

Production: Theatre Institute of Prague and Four Days Association

Project: We are in your hall, in your street, apartment and even in your theatre is a presentation of the Contemporary Experimental Czech Theatre in the Balkans comprising several performances in various locations.

Procedure: A minibus with eleven people (six performers, two presenters, a producer, a technician and a driver) will drive through our city. They make a group of the most prominent Czech actors, dancers, musicians, pantomime artists, dramatists and producers who is going to perform four plays in a four days period.

BABBLERS/DO YOU HEAR ME?
street performance/an installation
performers: jednotka, unit
location: a street, a bus stop, a shopping mall
casts: David Maj, Halka Tresnakova and Krzysztof Kinter
languages: croatian, serbian, bosnian

The performance/installation is based on sound systems integrated in bodies of three performers standing at the bus stop or in some other public place in the city. passers by (the audience) could hear their inner monologue. the performance is changeable and is being performed in the language of the country it is played in. The urban space and the audience make an entity creating the performance together with the actors. jednotka – unit is a group of performers gathered with an intention to participate in a wide range of activities, not limiting themselves exclusively to theatres. The main idea is to experiment with various artistic forms and ways of expression through the art. Jednotka – Unit does street performances, non-verbal theatre, design etc. Jednotka – Unit is not a typical theatrical troupe.

SWAN
Genre: street theatre
Performers and creators: Kristina Lhotakova and Ladislav Soukup
Location: a hall of the building, a street

This dance play happens in a hall of the building or in a narrow street or in the tunnel....... Performers move through people, passengers on the street, either following or breaking their rhythm. The audience stands on one side of the hall... Two people stand on both sides of the hall taking care of other people by helping them not to fear passing through it.

BLISS
Genre: comedy/pantomime
Performer, creator: Vojta Svejda
Location: the theatre
Languages: English, Russian or Czech

The narrative of the comedy is being inspired by poetics of the animated movies with elements of comic short cuts, editing, burlesque styling. The actor bases his work on the pantomime backed with sound effects. The live music produced by a contrabass and a clarinet makes a complete atmosphere of a performance making a live and vivid communication with the actor possible. Vojta Svejda graduated from the HAMU in Prague, Department for Non-Verbal Theatre and Comedy and is considered to be one of the most gifted young theatrical creators.

A QUESTION FOR THE NEXT YEAR
Genre: ballet
Performers; Ladislav Soukup, Kristina Lhotakova and Ivana Gotlibova
Location: theatre
Languages: English, Czech, but to a very small extent

A Question for the Next Year is a modern choreography for three performers: Ms. Ivana Gotlibova (1925), ballerina Kristina Lhotakova (1977) and Ladislav Soukup (1968), the musician. The choreography of this play of observation and presentation, communicated through the choreographic language of Kristina Lhotakova is based on details of human behavior. The Question for the Next Year was inspired by an old lady born in 1935, by her past and her present life. The old lady appears personally on the stage. The old lady is Ms. Iva Gotlibova born in 1925. She traveled during the World War II with a troupe of circus artists working as an acrobat, trying to avoid the German occupation. For a period of time she works as a journalist for a communist magazine The Red Rights until 1947 when she quits the communist party and starts working as a waitress. Ms. Gotlib trains gymnastics in the Sokol organization endorsing fitness and gymnastics skills. She is retired, divorced, she is a mother of four children and has seven grandchildren.The play was awarded Big Award at the Festival of the Contemporary Arts in Perth, Australia in 2001.