Emerging critics

Rarely have I put my head back so often during a festival visit. My eyes tried to follow the movements of the performers as closely as possible, but in the case of this festival, they really took on acrobatic challenges...

Three girls sitting on the ground. Three girls exploring their memories. Surrounded by emptiness. Indulging in the impulses of their bodies. Rapid, then fluid. 

                                soft against rough   clashing views

                          of tin and greenery  

                hideous tubes and sumptuous plants

        arranged in a bizarre scenery

Do you remember our backyard? Do you remember my hug? All are gone now. 

There is nothing living in this room, only us, resilient furniture. At best, we are the props of your daily routine: practical, and comforting.

I am wearing a flower crown.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Many people, a barefooted woman and a man inviting me inside the building. I have my shoes on. How did it happen – I am a spectator.

Interpreting art in novel styles and forms is a delicate matter – almost as delicate as creating it.  When film began to earn its status as an autonomous art form, critics emphasised its difference with theatre and its ability to do what the latter could not, mirroring more recent approaches to screendance...

Oqda, which in Arabic means knot, is not only the title of this dance and acrobatics piece by Etta Ermini Dance Theatre but an invitation to witness three remarkably skilled and charismatic performers embark on a highly spirited journey of embodied intercultural dialogue.

Hofesh Shechter’s Clowns premiered in 2016 and this adaptation on screen for BBC’s ‘Performance Live’ strand Program was released already in 2018 before any remote idea of dystopian viruses and lockdowns. 

The Norwegian dance group, Kartellet, created a video version of the 2014 performance Can you come down and fetch me? Initially, this performance was presented in front of an audience: this time, we watch it through a handheld camera...

In her piece UN/DRESS | moving painting, dancer and choreographer Masako Matsushita takes the viewer on a conscious journey of female bodily presence in a social context. 

To engage with an online performance is no easy task for me; I miss the feeling of being with the dancers – and the dancers being with me. However, the recorded version of The Lion’s Den managed to grab me...

Art is a reflection of the world we are living in, and an artist cannot create uninfluenced by their surroundings. This time Crystal Pite and Netherlands Dance Theatre bring a political theme to the table – both literally and metaphorically.

Following its reception of the Grand Prize and the Audience Award of the Dance Film Festival (Festival tanečních filmů), Guest Critic Richard Pettifer (AUS/GER) takes a closer look at Tereza Vejvodová’s debut film.