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PRESS RELEASE / Bazaar Theatre and Dance Festival: “The future is more than nation!”06.02. 2017
Damned Be the Traitor of His Homeland! is one of the most outstanding performances that contemporary post-Yugoslav theatre has to offer. It is also the first work by Frljić to be performed in the Czech Republic, and is being presented by Motus in collaboration with the Studio Hrdinů theatre. The performance is an explicitly humanist charge, presenting a manifesto where private dramas and historical dramas are interwoven. This intense Balkan production addresses the fateful break-up of Yugoslavia and its painful consequences. Frljić’s production is preceded by Mădălina Dan and Agata Siniarska’s Romanian-Polish collaboration Mothers of Steel – a science-fiction story from the near future that combines a critique of political manipulation with a study of emotions and the phenomenology of tears.
Because the Bazaar Festival is the only “development festival” (i.e., a sampling of excerpts and works-in- progress) in Central Europe, as in past editions the festival’s main focus will be the Saturday Bazaar organized in collaboration with Studio ALTA. Audiences can look forward to a daylong marathon of dance and theatre excerpts by artists from the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, Israel, Serbia, Slovakia, and other countries. The many different themes and subjects presented by the various samples and works-in- progress offer a far more interesting range of perspectives than today’s political, economic, or ideological stereotypes as usually presented by the media. What does our physicality say about us, who are we in terms of evolution, how are our experiences and memories split between reality and virtual worlds, what utopias are possible today, and how does our identity change in relation to others? Participants in this year’s Saturday Bazaar include Agata Siniarska (Berlin–Warsaw), Xenia Taniko Dwertmann (Berlin), and the friendly fire collective (Leipzig) and their guests from Israel. Czech artists presenting their works-in- progress include Zdenka Brungot Svíteková (Prague), Cristina Maldonado and Sodja Lotker (Prague), the Ufftenživot collective (Prague), and Markéta Jandová (Prague). The afternoon and evening performance blocks will be followed by a public discussion from the RespondArt series.
This year’s festival concludes with two recent performances from the northern and the southern parts of Eastern Europe. Ingrida Gerbutavičiūtė and Agnija Šeiko’s Dior in Moscow is based on a study of the changing role of women in post-Soviet societies. The performers’ clear vision is of the female body listening to stories and shaping our identities by telling and retelling them. Bulgarian artist Willy Prager’s Transformability is an anti-musical for an era with no fixed point of reference, a philosophical performance essay that ridicules an age that worships the myth of absolute flexibility and dynamism.
“The main aim of Bazaar 2017 is to look into the soul of society, which has undergone rapid changes in the past few years. It is toying with the destruction of its own freedom and with a sustainable model of civil society, and paints over reality by escaping into various fictions and ‘alternative facts.’ My personal motto for this year’s festival is ‘back to reality.’ Of course, we cannot live in reality without any vision or idea of what we want to be. What possibilities are there? In what direction can we set out today in order to avoid leaving behind ruins?” asks Ewan McLaren, the festival’s main programmer and artistic director of the Alfred ve dvoře theatre.
Over the course of three intensive festival days, artists from Central and Eastern Europe will present their possible answers at Alfred ve dvoře, Studio Hrdinů, and Studio ALTA. The festival program also includes discussions, a presentation by Austria’s unique SILK Fluegge ensemble, and a two-day workshop by artistic director Goran Injac of the Mladinsko ensemble.
For further information and details, please see www.alfredvedvore.cz/en/bazaar
A festival pass costs CZK 700 (400 students, seniors, disabled) if purchased by 28 February 2017. The price in March is CZK 800/500. Admission to individual performances is CZK 200/100, except for the performance by Oliver Frljić, which costs CZK 300/200.
Festival passes and tickets to individual performance can be purchased online at GoOut, on the websites of the participating theaters, and at Alfred ve dvoře.
Festival program:
FRIDAY 17.3.
1–5pm / Alfred ve dvoře/ CURATING POTENTIAL: INDEPENDENT CURATING IN INSTITUTIONS I:
Workshop with Goran Injac, artistic director of Mladinsko Theatre
4pm / Studio ALTA / DISASTROUS – Presentation of works by SILK Fluegge, including excerpts (AT)
6pm / Alfred ve dvoře / MOTHERS OF STEEL / Agata Siniarska (PL) & Mădălina Dan (RO)
8pm / Studio Hrdinů / DAMNED BE THE TRAITOR OF HIS HOMELAND! / Oliver Frljić & Divadlo Mladinsko (SLO)
SATURDAY 18.3.
10am–1pm / Alfred ve dvoře / CURATING POTENTIAL: INDEPENDENT CURATING IN INSTITUTIONS II: Workshop with Goran Injac, artistic director of Mladinsko Theatre
2–10pm / Studio ALTA / SATURDAY BAZAAR
Block 1 / 2–6pm
HAZARD ZONE / Zdenka Brungot Svíteková (SK/NO/CZ), Marta Bichisao (IT) & Sylvain Sicaud (FR)
KEEP CALM / Ufftenživot (CZ)
STEREOPRESENCE / Cristina Maldonado (MEX/CZ)
+ RespondArt discussion with Alica Koubová
Block 2 / 6:30–10pm
IN THE NAME OF KAR / Markéta Jandová & Jitka Tůmová (CZ)
THE ZIONIST-SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF UGANDA: THE STATE OF THINGS TO COME (PRAGUE EMBASSY) / friendly fire (DE)
A DANCE IS A DANCE IS A DANCE / Agata Siniarska (PL) & Xenia Taniko Dwertmann (DE)
+ RespondArt discussion with Alica Koubová
+ DJ Johana
SUNDAY 19.3.
6pm / Studio ALTA / DIOR IN MOSCOW / Ingrida Gerbutavičiūtė & Agnija Šeiko (LIT)
8pm / Alfred ve dvoře / TRANSFORMABILITY / Willy Prager (BLG)
