HAIRWAYS / Screaming Fish

„Strong swelling tresses, carry me away!“ Images tangled up in the memory of our hair.

Every culture gives different meanings to hair, and hairstyles have evolved throughout human history. Hairstyles have allowed people to express their relationship to society, identify with certain groups or faiths, express their opinion or sense of style... Hairstyles have evolved not only over history, but during the lifespan of individuals, becoming a part of a person’s life story, memories and experiences. Our hair accompanies us through life and changes as we do. Whether we like it or not, hair is part of the human body which communicates with those around us. We show it off, hide it, ruffle it, decorate it...

The Screaming Fish group or Ryba řvoucí explores the connections between the world of hair and the life experience of the individual, placing them into surprising contexts, contrasts and playful images, crossing from day-to-day life into the worlds of the abstract and the purely surreal. In movement, in space, in light, and in sound, hair appears as a day-to-day material that can symbolize the miraculous transformation of characters on stage. These are hairways that grow, ripple, shorten, fray and weave, waving in the winds of the hairdryer.

The Screaming Fish or Ryba řvoucí group creates nonverbal performances with a strong emphasis on visual elements. The group’s most significant work to date has been what started as a student project entitled Bathrooms, exploring new approaches to theatre-in-the-home and to visual performance. The project comprised a ten-part series of perfomances created in the bathrooms of people’s homes from 2009 to 2013, and three theatre productions in the Czech Republic and France: Bathrooms part I: Soap (2011, Studio Řetízek, Praha), Beauty (2012, Manufacture de Chaussures, Bordeaux) and Bathrooms part II: Beauty (2013, Alfred ve dvoře Theatre, Prague).

Screaming Fish takes as its inspiration everyday materials, which it sees as the essential impulse for new themes and motivations. Final performances are created after a phase of pure experiment yielding scenographic materials, photographs, created objects or performance art works. The group develops the scenographic and theatrical possibilities of these materials in the contexts of both nonconventional and conventional theatre space.