International festival of contemporary dance and dance theatre will take place in Prague from 1 to 25 June 2018 and from late May, it will be hosted by other twenty Czech towns and villages. The festival will open with Jiří Kylián’s (CZ/NL) intimate piece East Shadow in the Ponec Theathe (from 1 to 3 June 2018). The highlights of the festival that will coronate its final days are Sunny by Emanuel Gat (FR/IL) and Dancing Grandmothers by Ezn-Me Ahn (KR). The full programme is to be found at www.tanecpraha.org.“I can’t even describe how honoured we are to collaborate with Jiří Kylián, internationally acclaimed persona of the dance the world and of Czech origin. His generosity de facto helped to start the festival even before the fall of the Iron Curtain, which makes his return to the festival after 30 years even more symbolic. For us, it is a fundamental co-production partnership with Kylián Productions BV,” says Yvona Kreuzmannová, founder and director of Tanec Praha. East Shadow is a dialogue of multiple genres – live piano music, film and performance. It deals with issues that were offered to selected artists at Aichi Triennale 2013 in Japan: Samuel Beckett and helping tsunami victims from 2011. Jiří Kylián has admired Beckett’s absurd world since his youth. And then there is the shocking element that draws us back to the simpliest things in life, confronts us with the matter of life and death, on stage, it transforms into the matter of film and live performance. “I’m painfully aware of the fact that anything we do or make will inevitably be doomed,” says Jiří Kylián.
Kylián worked on the piece together with close friends and dancers – Sabine Kupferberger, his wife and long-time muse, and American Gery Chryst. He also invited the pianist based in Holland, Tomoko Mukaiyama. “In spirit of existential vanity and grotesque absurdity he lets us float of the waves of nostalgy, poetry and impressive imagery and we wish it didn’t stop,” adds Kreuzmannová.
The programme of Tanec Praha 2018 also includes African and Mexican productions offering fresh and authentic energy and at the same time inviting to serious reflection. Ladji Kone (BF) accompanied by a musician shows and searches for a way of linking the traditional and contemporary. Foco alAire (MX) lets blossom the fragments of their qrotesque in nostalgic music sets of post-war years.
East Shadow trailer here. Source: Tanec Praha
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