Czech Dance Platform: Three Questions for Jozef Fruček
Choreographic tandem Jozef Fruček and Linda Kapetanea, which has been active since 2006 under the name RootlessRoot Company, has been known to audiences in the Czech Republic thanks to his collaboration with DOT504 company, for which they created very successful productions - Holdin'Fast (2007) and 100 Wounded Tears (2009). The last joint endeavor for DOT504, Collective Loss of Memory, premiered last year and it will be presented at the Czech Dance Platform. Jozef Fruček talked with us about its preparations.
The team of performers for the piece Collective Loss of Memory was formed on the basis of an open call for dancers, with five hundred participants. What was that experience like?Long before the start of the rehearsal process, we knew the theme and the very content of the show. Therefore, we wanted to choose actors and dancers for the project who would be able to sustain such a topic. It was also important for us to see new people. 500 dancers enrolled for the project, but for the actual audition we invited only 100. Nobody likes auditions and we also do not, but this is a great test / a test to show in a short time their creative potential, to be themselves. Being oneself is not easy, especially when you are required a lot of things in a short time. In any case, it was an excellent experience. We saw a lot of talented people. How far was it different then working with a freshly made group from creating for a relatively stable membership base? What are the advantages and disadvantages this situation brought?
Every situation and grouping brings its own advantages to be learned and developed. Cons need not to be even remembered. Whether it is a permanent group, or a new cluster, it does not matter. We have always known how to enjoy each creation of new performances. When we create, we do not suffer. To create a piece with a group of talented, hard-working performers is a great experience. You create, speculate, you play, you are serious, then play again, you are bored, suddenly inspired, putting pieces together and apart again. In each meeting, you meet a new world and new ideas about who you are and what you do. Every person who gives you the opportunity to once again look at your models of perception gives you the opportunity to evolve and develop a context in which we articulate our knowledge. Thanks to the others we are what we are.
The only challenge is to keep an international team together for a longer period. Not only you are a choreographic tandem, you are married as well. How do you manage to balance these two positions? Do you bring work home, and vice versa "private stuff” to the studio? How do you complement each other in choreographic work?
I think we are very dynamic grouping with everyday conflicts. Without them, I cannot imagine our relationship. We fight about every idea and project, about attitude of life, a poem or a picture. It is the right fight. I would like to live in a harmonious conflict-free relationship, but the reality is different and more beautiful. We have a beautiful family, children that love us, parents who help us, outstanding students, amazing artists we work with, we travel, we live, we fight, we search in ourselves, we love each other, then again we fight, our bodies hurt more, we sleep less, we grow older and we are together, it’s just beautiful. We are stubborn, tense, with large teeth, ready to bite into any challenges that stand before us. We are nobody and will stay nobody. Therefore, it is easy for us to experiment and search and change, and return.
Translation: Kristina Soukupová
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