Theatre at Pohoda 2019

The phenomenal combination of the eclectic musical ensemble Fekete Seretlek and the Prague theatre Studio Damúza will deliver to Pohoda visitors the essence of theatre art in their production BURIAL FEAST.

Burial feast. The glasses are clinking in the slow tones of a funeral band. However, the quiet farewell is soon going to be disturbed by episodes from the life of the deceased: and those scenes start to appear right in front of the guests and spectators. Did the person they are remembering come back to life? Or is it just the imagination of wine-enjoying guests that becomes so real? The past reaches up to the present and everyone becomes a character of Anne Karenineʼs story.

The cabaret of Russian Realism brings an energy-packed dramaturgy enriched with authorial music. Harmonica, percussions, violin, violoncello, and bass accompany spectators through the metamorphoses of theatre, cabaret, intimate scenes, and moving objects. The pace is growing until spectators and the actors—almost before the door of death—find themselves back at the beginning, at the table, holding a glass of wine in hand.

BURIAL FEAST has already been performed at festivals in Croatia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Austria, Germany, Hungary, Russia, and France.

Director: Matija Solce

Cast: Pavol Smolárik, Anna Bubníková, Jiří N. Jelínek, Ivo Sedláček, Jan Meduna, Matija Solce

Scenography: Marianna Stránská

Divadlo na tahu: Protest

On the occasion of the 30^th anniversary of November 1989, we will remember Protest, a lesser-known 1978 play of Václav Havel, that will be performed by his court theatre Divadlo na tahu.

To sign or not to sign? A one-act theatrical piece about a complex question with an even more complex answer, a dilemma that persists: this is one of the typical themes of Václav Havelʼs dramatic work.

Times are hard again. Home and the world are bustling with petitions and protests. Do these activities have any meaning at all? Can dissatisfied people affect what is happening around them? Will they influence the actions and conscience of politicians? And will it be enough?

The legendary theatre Divadlo na tahu was founded by Andrej Krob, a stage technician at the theatre Na zábradlí and an occasional actor, who decided to study The Beggarʼs Opera, a new play by his friend and banned playwright Václav Havel. He secretly rehearsed it with a group of non-actor friends and it was publicly performed on November 1, 1975 at the U Čelikovských inn in Horní Počernice. The performance was permitted because the communist approval authority had not revealed Havelʼs concealed authorship. It was the only public presentation of the play by playwright Václav Havel before 1988.

After the Počernice performance, the author, the cast, and the audience faced police repression. Other activities of the theatre Divadlo na tahu were then held in private until November 1989. Andrej Krob, as a director of all the productions, presented them to friends and invited guests at his cottage at Hrádeček near the city of Trutnov. Visited and loved by Václav Havel, Hrádeček became a place of unique cultural events, such as isles of freedom.

Director: Andrej Krob

Cast: Karel Beseda, Radek Bár

Divadlo NUDE: I love you and watch out

An authorial production about the intimate details of motherhood, unusual beauty, and hidden doubts; about how motherhood can be confusing and lonely; about children, their fathers, parents, and parentsʼ parents.

Where are the boundaries of a woman who is a mother? Why is motherhood so difficult when it has existed since the very beginning? Has it always been so, or are we just thinking too much now?

Four mothers and their rooms.

The production denies the romantic images of motherhood and shows the familiar “theatre mirror” to the real world. The authors say everything that is not said aloud in our society in connection with the word “mother”.

Four mothers invite spectators to visit their rooms. One room, one space, one visit, one story.

The production won the Bratislava Audience Award at the New Drama 2019 festival.

Director and dramaturgy: Veronika Malgot and Lýdia Petrušová

Theme, scenography, costumes, graphic design:  Laura Štorcelová

Cast: Lenka Libjaková, Mirka Ábelová, Veronika Malgot alt. Libuša Bachratá, Lýdia Ondrušová, Gab

D U A L 

People living side by side, each in their world. A relationship focused on experiencing oneʼs self, oneʼs thoughts, and inner virtual processes. Can we offer a value for a relationship? Do we want, can we, are we able to…? 

The production D U A L is about the relationship and sound, the relationship of sounds, the sounding of the relationship, and relating the relationship. It is a live concert of sounds and bodies. DUAL is based on research. The research led to the formation of musical instruments: wooden containers with piezoelectric sensors attached. These read the vibrations of the material that arise when the dancer moves in the container and hits its walls. It is the movement and the body of the dancer that make the containers sound and bring us into the imaginary world of sound and light. 

The performance of D U A L is the result of cooperation between choreographer and dancer K. Brestovanská / 16 and musician M. Kosorín / Zoo And Aquarium. 

The show uses also a poem by Zuzana Husárová from her book Lucent.

Theme, director: Katarína Brestovanská

Sound: Martin Kosorín

Light design: Ints Plavnieks, Martin Kosorín

Costumes: Erika Daxnerová

Object design and realisation: Dana Kleinert, Oliver Kleinert

Dance: Edita Antalová, Lukáš Bobalík

Production: Katarína Zjavková

Media set: Marianna Lutková

Lucia Holinová: NIVEAU STABLE

A site-specific version of the dance production Niveau stable created specifically for performance at the Pohoda festival. Performance of 4 dancers, 2 couples, and 2 generations.

The Danube reminds us that there is a wide unbearable heaven. Even if you dare to swim, you never get out of the river on the same spot. When you get into a whirlwind, suddenly you donʼt know what it is up and what down; you can only save yourself if you surrender. Let yourself be drawn in: it will give you a direction. Feel the river bed, bounce with your full strength, and you may be able to inhale before this all.

The people of the Danube area know what it is like to go on a date with immensity. Here, in the riverʼs middle path, the Danube is already quite old. It carries various things: driftwood, pieces of metal, boats, and ships. Some things are carried up to the sea; other things get caught on the shores; and yet, other stuff sinks right to the bottom. Just like our physical memories. A random circumstance may bring them on the surface over time. It tends to be surprising, sometimes ugly, sometimes relieving, depending on whether we are ready. The surface opens for an instant, and for another instant, we freeze. A moment later, all is quiet again—and underneath, there is dormant stuff on the bottom, being pushed by the streams. The river seems to have nothing to do with it.

Director and choreography: Lucia Holinová

Dance and movement material: Lukáš Bobalík, Barbora Janáková, Renata Ptačin, Daniel Raček

Music, scene: Vlado Holina

Theme and dramaturgy: Zuzana Očenášová Vasičáková

Costumes: Veronika Keresztesová

Production: RESERVA,o.z.

Markus Zohner Arts Company: Radio Frankenstein

Radio Frankenstein examines today’s scientific and technical possibilities of modification, manipulation, and creation of human bodies, projecting this into the near future by asking how these plausible scenarios and their implementations relate to fairness. Who has access to “improvements”, and on whose budget will they go? Or, in other words, who or what decides which people do not have access to healing, enhancement, transplantation?  Who loses? On what grounds?

Radio Frankenstein was initiated for the JRCs Science and Art project as part of the Resonances II festival on Fairness in collaboration with Markus Zohner and his theatre group. The play is based on a real-life anecdote, of the Italian Doctor Cannevaro moving to China to work on his project to realise the first head transplant operation.

Performance in English.