Wednesday’s Night Circulation at Kabinet MÚZ was not merely a sequence of three concerts, but the transformation of a single collective body. From clusters of people gathered outside the entrance to the crowd’s final dispersal, the festival night took shape, gained momentum, and faded away to its own rhythm.
Seven young women undress themselves with their words and reveal their bare souls to the audience. Seven testimonies about tears, dread, unhealed scars and fury. There are seven figures standing before us, yet their words sound almost hauntingly similar. The Ukrainian Theater Association The LAVA Team reveal their inner world and share a piece of it with us, in a play inspired by their own experiences with growing up.
Totalitarianism, populism, and domination. These are the terms that come to mind when one thinks of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. However, this work by the students of the Korean National University of Performing Arts presents it differently at first glance. Through the metaphor of Sugar Candy Mountain, it playfully shows the cruel reality that our society is facing.
The Korean adaptation of Animal Farm by the students of the Korean National University of Arts offers a visually captivating, yet conceptually simplified interpretation of Orwell’s famous allegory. Taein Kwak’s production relies on repetition, stylized acting, and a sensory audience experience, shifting the focus away from the political layer toward aesthetics and atmosphere. The result is an appealing, almost fairy-tale-like world, beneath whose surface lies an unsettling image of a willingly accepted dictatorship.
Achtung! Achtung! Vorsicht! Fall. The desire to wake up is great, but what if we feel even worse afterwards? Or better. Let’s imagine a dream: a fall through the abyss, no solid ground at the bottom, and a tightening feeling inside us. We feel sick because no one can guarantee a soft landing. Will we manage to twist around in time and land on all fours? And if not, will our broken leg heal as quickly as our mind? And if not, will anyone take it into account? And if not, what impact will it have on society?
It all began seemingly inconspicuously. Over food. In the crowd outside the faculty, hot dog vouchers were being handed out as a symbol of togetherness and a shared ritual. But then, he appeared. Pravdomil Vincent. “President of Theatres.” A figure who materialized on the podium by the entrance to JAMU like an echo of everything that suffocates art.
Animal Farm is a timeless piece that allegorically captures the harsh reality of communism and totalitarian regimes. Even though the adaptation by the Korea National University of Arts of the play seemed cute and almost comical at first glance, we must not forget the true nature of this classic. That is exactly why, together with several students of the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts, we discussed how this topic affects us today.
Conversation is like tennis, while theatre is more like an exhibition – we know beforehand where the ball is going to land and how we’re going to return it. How do we convince the audience then, that a match is really being played? We went over some basic exercises with John Freeman as part of his workshop to at least try to answer this question.
Blurring the lines between grotesque, musical, and a return to the very essence of theater, the Polish delegation presents a radically condensed version of Balladyna, only an echo of Juliusz Słowacki’s five-act drama. Directed by Lada Borovska and featuring Agnieszka Solská’s solo performance, a tragic story of guilt and power becomes a disturbingly playful yet cruel spectacle, where a single actress creates an entire world.
