After a morning meeting with Anna Rouhu, who introduced us to the concept of greener and sustainable theatre, another workshop took place in classroom 104 - this time dedicated to public space and socially engaged theatre.
For this year's SETKÁNÍ/ENCOUNTER, JAMU has prepared two productions - The Image of a Woman and Origin of Clouds or What It Means to Believe in Something. The former takes place in a closed apartment, the latter in an infinite space.
This composite performance brings a glimpse of two seemingly disparate peripheries of human solitude, in both cases working with a space that the performers themselves transform into and add to its aura through their appearance.
Sustainability as a process, sustainability as a human challenge. In harmony with nature and the available resources. Thinking about theatrical production in such a way that we do not renounce our vision of how to present the whole in a good and effective way, but we also consume fewer natural resources. Not everything is permanent. Rather, it is durable, and this is certainly not to be taken in a negative sense. However, for such an approach, which is not just a phantasmagorical mirage, it is necessary to remove the ego and prioritize the eco. The eco way for a more inert artistic process.
prof. Mgr. Petr Oslzlý is a dramaturg, scriptwriter, actor and for many years the artistic director of the Husa na provázku Theatre. He was the director of the Centre for Experimental Theatre Author and co-author of almost fifty theatre scripts, ten books and a large number of essays on theatre and art. He was a co-initiator of the Velvet Revolution in November 1989, and an advisor to President Václav Havel in 1990-1992. Last but not least, he was the director of the SETKÁNÍ-ENCOUNTER festival from 1995-2018, the rector of JAMU from 2018-2022 and since 2007 the head of one of the three studios of dramaturgy and directing at JAMU.
The reappearance of spring has brought with it the thirty-fourth edition of the international theatre festival SETKÁNÍ/ENCOUNTER, which this year will feature theatre companies from universities in Poland, Ukraine, Switzerland, Austria, Serbia, Latvia, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. The forecast for this week is clear: over the course of five days, we can expect educational and cultural overflows in the form of workshops, discussions, but especially theatre productions.
For this year's SETKÁNÍ/ENCOUNTER, DAMU brought an autobiographical collage by two women, Kristina and Jovita, entitled “Anytime, Anywhere.” Through audio-visual, textual, and movement elements, the heroines, whom fate introduced to each other in Prague, convey their feelings, losses, and understanding, interwoven with playful humour.
How do you imagine the curve that would represent your life? This ideal biography allows for minor missteps and existential difficulties, but have you thought about the loss of a loved one? To what extent would this major event affect your idea of a more or less easy-going life? The autobiographical production "Anytime, Anywhere" by students from the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague might help you in your search for answers.
The production Hello, Out There! by the Latvian ensemble from the Latvian Academy of Culture is faithful, authentic, and fair to its name. A veiled, sometimes dreamlike atmosphere in an empty space. Disorientation between freedom and confinement –– physical and psychological. A call into the void, with the hope that a response will return in the form of another's voice rather than one's own. And to top it off, two evocative performances by the actors, excelling in well-handled, pithy, and at times absurd dialogue and gymnastic stunts on the tightrope.
