On the one hand, the international festival of contemporary art 4 + 4 Days in Motion annually brings to Prague the hottest theatre and dance projects, often merging diverse genres and multimedia. On the other hand, it always chooses as its centre the unused and empty buildings in central Prague. This year is no exception. From 6 to 14 October the festival programme, taking place in Archa, Ponec or Alfred in the Courtyard theatres, and in Studio ALTA, will feature both leading European creators and artists and companies from Angola, Algeria, Morocco, Ukraine, USA, Canada, or Ivory Coast. See more on www.ctyridny.cz.Following last year’s Cityhall Houses, this year the festival will occupy the Karlín Barracks. The premises will host an extensive exhibition of contemporary art AMIWHATIAMTHINKINGABOUT consisting of objects, paintings and installations of 40 authors and curated by Tomáš Svoboda and Ondřej Chrobák. There will also be short films, creative workshops for primary and secondary schools, workshops, guided tours around Karlín, discussions on contemporary art, festival school, café and bar. Many companies will premiere their site-specific projects – e.g. VOSTO5, Lecture by Lukas, the mysterious opera Journal of the Thief Jan Nebeský, duos such as Johana Švarcová and Petr Vaněk, Kristýna Lhotáková and Láďa Soukup, Cristina Maldonado, Philip Schenker together with DAMU students, companies 11:55, Petr Boháč with the Spitfire Company or Howie Lotker’s project located around Karlín Barracks.
“For the first time in the festival’s history we present artists who were born or still work far beyond the borders of Europe. They are excellent creators who not only build on their unique cultural tradition but also are pioneers of modern theatre, dance and music in countries such as Angola, Algeria, Morocco, Ukraine or Ivory Coast. The dramaturgy of the festival is so framed by a series of topical and archetypal questions concerning taboos, social conventions and traditions, with reference to the colonial heritage,“ says the dramaturge Pavel Štorek.
Respectable Thief by the Angolan multi-media artist Nástio Mosquita fuses music, poetry, videos and texts with critical approaches towards various stereotypes dominating the Western culture. The multi-media performance Zvizdal (Chernobyl – so far, so close) by the Belgian company BERLIN offers a portrait of an elderly couple who refused to move out of the exclusion zone after the explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear plant and until these days they have been farming, completely isolated, on their grounds. The group of seven Ukrainian artists Dakh Daughters Band became one of the main symbols of the fight for democracy in Ukraine. In their cabaret-like performances they mix punk, rock and rap with Ukrainian folklore. The Swiss choreographer of Algerian origin Philippe Saire in his last experimental choreography Vacuum combines movement and visual art – two neon tubes give an optical illusion of empty space in which levitate two dancers. Myriam Bleau, Montreal composer and multi-media artist, experiments with sound, visual and symbolic potential of wine glasses in her audio-visual performance autopsy.glass. The live recordings of sounds – vibrations, resonances or crackling – undergo sound transformation and it influences back the light installation. In her latest choreography Personal Symphonic Moment, the Finnish choreographer and musician Elina Pirinen decided to “dissect” Shostakovich’s Symphony n. 7. In En Alerte, Taoufig Izeddiou - leading Moroccan choreographer - lets his personal memories of the first exposure to the Súfi ceremonial mingle with contemporary Arabian poetry. The dancer and choreographer Madia Beugré from Ivory Coast explores the issues of forbidden places and freedom of movement in her choreography Quartiers Libres. New York avant-garde artist and Andy Warhol’s collaborator Penny Arcade conceives her piece Longing Lasts Longer as a daring melange of rock’n’roll, parody of stand-up comedy and personal flashbacks of 40 years of life in pop-culture. Arcade has presented her show - devoted primarily to New York - in 22 cities around the world.
Source: Institute of Art – Theatre Institute
Josef Bartos
Thank you for your thoughts. One got stuck in my mind – that passion makes us different from AI. Just yesterday I read…I am a dance critic. I am a member of an endangered species