PROGRAMME WEDNESDAY / 3. 4.
10:00 The Body Of Many Voices / Nela H. Kornetová Astorka / 180 ́/ W
13:00 Wanna Try Folklore? DF JAMU, The Hall - 202 / 120 ́ / W
15:00 Chekhov. Next Russia / HaDi / 75 ́ / MP /JP
17:30 Accordance! Slovakia / DHNP / 90 ́ / MP /JP
18:00 Chekhov. Next Russia / HaDi / 75 ́ / MP
20:00 OEDIPUS Philippines / DnO / 60 ́ / MP /JP
21:30 In the Solitude DnO, 5th floor, rehearsal room / 50 ́ / OFF
21:00 Sweet re-leaf VIBE Club / OFF party
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EDITORIAL How to do a proper encounter? Follow the recipe and I can guarantee that you are going to have the encounter of your dreams. Encounter ingredients: •
a will for an encounter
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nice and friendly attitude
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kind and charming people
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a plan for the day
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Meeting Point
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a theatre
• Brno •
good food
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coffee/tea/wine/something stronger
Instructions: Right after you wake up, make up your mind that you are really pining to meet someone and not stay alone. Add a pinch of a nice and friendly attitude, since it will, unfortunately, not be possible without it. Once you knead yourself into the right consistency, it is time to add kind and charming people you want to meet with. Ideally three people, but you can use less or many more. Even though you could go with your friends for this, you might be surprised how revitalizing it is to be with someone you’ve just met. The next ingredient on the list is the plan for the day. One of the possible ways to acquire it is from the festival programme that you can find at Meeting Point–whether you opt for a workshop or a discussion you are invited to, or just chilling around the festival café Punkt., we believe that you can never go wrong. Should you find yourself in need of a conversation topic or have some spare time before the encounter, Meeting Point can naturally offer you a lot of interesting reading.
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And now for the finishing touches. You need to add a generous amount of theatre, Brno and good food, or spice it up with some music from an off-programme. Finally, we recommend you wash it all down with some amazing coffee, tea, wine or something stronger if desired. And if you want to have your encounter even more revitalizing, we recommend adding some offline mode into the concoction. Enjoy your meal! Sára Matůšová, Editor-in-Chief
REVIEWS / MAIN PROGRAMME ➝
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THE OPENING CEREMONY On April 2nd 2019 the sun is shining over Brno and in front of the Theatre faculty of JAMU, around one p.m., people are gathering, full of expectation. We are tuned in a positive festival mood by the rhythm of the song Oh Happy Day, but it is interrupted by a student of acting Matěj Beneš and his desperate escape from the faculty. “What else do you want from me?!” He screams at his pedagogues, who are watching him stone-faced
we are children again. The whole parade is watched over by Leoš Janáček, the patron of JAMU. And the parade comes to Náměstí Svobody where the desperate actor Matěj goes through a cleansing ritual in a circle of his companions. And off we go to Jakubské náměstí. There everyone joins to sing Follow me and you never be alone together. Here Matěj meets the guru of comedians, Bolek Polívka himself, under a very rare cheerful clown
from the heights of the building. Despair. Loss of purpose in everything. Need for… help? The emotions we all have sometimes. He runs away and on his way he meets a mysterious figure. A divine muse fascinates him and becomes his guide on his way to find love for art again. We are all part of this magnificent event, we can find ourselves in a colourful world of street artists with the sound of barrel organ in the background. Around us whole circus comes to life. We go past cheeky pills, floating ballet dancers, clowns, acrobats... We are snacking on a sweet candyfloss and, for a moment,
tree. He gives Matěj one of the clown red noses right from the tree. This is the end of Matěj´s journey and everyone gathers at Moravské náměstí, where once again we sing together and this year´s Encounter is officially started with a motto for this year - Encounter regenerates! A big thank you to everyone who is part of the festival´s organisation team, namely David Bosh, Hanka Zahradníčková and Soňa Mucinová.
photo by Aneta Jindrová
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Veronika Onheiserová, JAMU
MY ANXIETY PAX A WEAPON THE FUTURE STARTS NOW Humanity is literally fascinated by thoughts of a dystopian future. We write books about it, shoot films, perform on stage – always making up new versions of how our world will look when the great catastrophe that will almost wipe our species off of the planet takes place. But while we spent decades only daydreaming about this future, the future has slowly become the present. Not only are we not aware of this process, but we don’t even accept the fact that we ourselves are to blame for the upcoming catastrophe. What can be done so that humanity will realize the gravity of our situation and finally take action? The Polish students’ production follows Gulliver on his Back-to-the-Future-like journey in a wreck of a car. He visits several islands where, surrounded by old refrigerators and microwaves (the last surviving remnants of civilisation), Gulliver observes the immediate results of the environmental catastrophe. He never remains unnoticed, instead always finding himself immersed in the reality of the island. Then someone else takes his place, and when Gulliver seemingly escapes from his island, the process repeats itself. There are worlds where people communicate solely by means of Bryan Adams songs, mutate as a result of a nuclear reactor explosion, or attend reality shows about families who eat their young. These worlds seem completely remote and surreal, yet today’s problems are mirrored in them. If the dystopian future still concerns itself with questions of abortion or homosexuality, where does the the present end and the future start? Maybe the real theme here is our present, after all? The Polish production is not the first one to ask
photo by Aneta Jindrová
these kinds of questions, and surely will not be the last. Why stage so many performances, over and over again, about the same thing? Maybe this is the very reason. So that people finally realize that it is they who are holding the gun, even while they pose in front of politically and environmentally-concerned posters, just like in front of any other “Instagram wall”. Iva Heribanová, MUNI
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ALICE_(Ƨ) BASED ON LEWIS CARROLL ACADEMY OF PERFORMING ARTS BADEN -WUERTTEMBERG (ADK) / GERMANY The central motives of the whole performance include the issues of identity (its seeking, grasping and existence) and variability persisting despite the situation recurrence. In this respect the concept was very good. A depiction of never ending metamorphoses of all including human nature and self-recognition by means of multiple actors representing the same character worked, I would say, excellently. The matching costumes certainly helped as well, though. The setting was also successful – a wall preventing knowledge of what exactly was hidden behind it maintained awareness of existence of another world, existing in parallel to our world, as well as of the barrier, most of the time impermeable. When you move from the general to the more specific features you find out that there is not much more to discover. The mission is already included in the general concept and the audience know it from the very beginning in fact. The individual scenes do not bring any more new ideas, the dialogues are lost in purposeless absurd cycles. Some might object that this was a natural part of the selected formal concept. True, the fragmented structure with a series of repetitive and absurd elements is a typical evergreen of postmodern theatre, but this trend has led to establishment of certain “proven elements” with empty content and today representing rather mannerism than functionality. This play to included symbols without links to archetypes and therefore arbitrarily interpretable, which is certainly not functional with regard to individuality of expression. Luckily, the presence of a couple of these mannerist elements (such as the repeated situation with milk and a ball following the model of absurd drama)
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photo by Andrea Benešová
was later justified by their ridiculing. By the way, the performance included a lot of slapsticks which made it more digestible – together with the frequent allusions of the present. I am not sure whether ridiculing of the empty forms was intentional or rather inadvertent, intuitive, but it was certainly a step in the right direction Jan Rec, JAMU
DO WE STILL HAVE A CHANCE? The director Pedro Martins Beja and his team prepared a performance investigating not only the boundary of reality and fiction, but also the limits of mutual human understanding. The text draws free inspiration from the two famous novels by Lewis Carroll about Alice in the Wonderland. The content includes absurd dialogues in which the characters try to reach their targets, only to find out that they took a wrong way. The stage is set with a plastic green lawn, a high grey wall and three plastic trees behind the wall. The stage depth is reduced, and all acting takes place at the front only. Alice, represented at the beginning of the story by all ten actors, is dressed in a light blue dress, white knee-length socks, and white sneakers. In the course of the performance this character wanders among the audience and is recognisable by the costume. The other characters are dressed, in turn, realistically and absurdly, whether it is a man with many neckties, a prophetess with a white iris, or a half-naked man with a blurred face. The actors show the audience a horrifying world filled with strange dialogues, strange situations, and above all strange movements. The way the individual sentences are uttered multiplies the impression of an insane world where it is impossible for people to understand each other. And if we cannot understand each other’s words, we cannot understand each other’s thinking either. This idea strongly resonates across the stage throughout the performance. Each character stubbornly tries to find solutions, mostly to banal problems, but everything is confused, repeating itself and lacking any order. The whole performance is organised to not reveal whether Alice is trying to get out of Wonderland into the real world, or from the real world into
photo by Andrea Benešová
Wonderland. Either way, the performance makes it clear that the young actors from Germany do not give the world much chance – each of us is a pretender, speaks a nonsensical language, and is not interested in understanding others. Martin Tilšar., DAMU
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THE PHAEDRA`S LOVE DID YOU FUCK MY MOTHER? White canvases stained with inscriptions. Post-coital. Parasites. Bastard. A video camera watching your every step, your every expression, movement, everything you do. Is it your conscience, or is everyone else waiting for you to make a mistake and fall? Other people are your conscience, you see it in their faces. They are the reflection of everything you do or say out loud, and they are the reaction to it, too. You are afraid of them, because you are afraid of yourself. You despise them, because you despise yourself. Are you willing to do the dirtiest deed to reach the peak of pleasure? Phaidra’s love for Hippolytos is strong enough to make her deaf to her own common sense, the advice of her daughter, or Hippolytos’ swearing. She wants to be with him. To be physically touching him. But he despises his step-mother, makes fun of her, and speaks about all of his one-night stands, both women and men. This just makes Phaidra’s lust for him even stronger. She is an animal which cannot control its sexual instincts. Then frustrati-
photo by Aneta Jindrová
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on comes, breakdown, shame. Stained with Hippolytos’ sperm, and ridiculed, Phaidra leaves with the knowledge that the difference between a human and an animal is only that humans have free will. And that she is not able to use hers around Hippolytos. He is woken from his apathy and finds the meaning of his life, paradoxically, only in the moment when his step-mother accuses him of abuse in her letter. He receives a life sentence, but that is his new journey, better than the old one, anyway. The spectator is able to see multiple conflicts between the main characters, because Phaidra, her daughter, and Hippolytos are played by multiple actors and actresses simultaneously. Every actor or actress works with the character differently, and tries to extract various parts of the character’s mind. So there are pieces of the story for the spectator to assemble into a complete picture, and is up to him or her which point of view to take. Kristýna Staroštíková, MUNI/JAMU
REVIEWS / OFF-PROGRAMME ➝
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OPEN AIR STAGE It’s April the 2nd. Springtime. Encounter. And that’s how it all started. With one magnificent parade, and it continued with the Opening ceremony on an Open Air Stage. Moravian square. Brno. Jamu. All this and much more came together there. The sequence of concerts which opened the festival ENCOUNTER began in the early afternoon with performances by four student bands. The first of them was the band “Něco si přej” (Just wish something)
is very much connected with dancing which makes her performance very unique. It’s evening. The sun is setting. And one of the main stars, Katarzia, is now on stage. By herself, only with her guitar, she’s almost whispering her songs to the audience, to each spectator individually. She sings about current problems of personal lives and of society. It’s electronic music, it’s something between pop and rap. She ends her performance by
with their songs from the rock and roll era, the 50s and 60s. Moravian square was just full of people. Matyas Darnady. An alumnus of Dramatic Acting and his acoustic guitar. Vojta Kriz, a student in the second year of Stage Technology, Moonway Defender and their funk rock style. MIMO. Barbora Gajdosova, a student of Theatre Production and Dance Education. A combination of Indi, rock, electro, and her fragility. She finds inspiration for composing her songs everywhere including the theatre – and that’s why one of her songs is named Oblaka (a czech play written by Jaroslav Kvapil). The music
speaking softly into the microphone “I’ll leave and never come back because time goes on”. The whole evening ends with the last performance, by Acute Dose, with alternative pop music. In the meantime night fell. Like every year, when winter leaves and spring comes. Brno is full of people, noise, beer and the smoke of cigarettes. It’s exactly like this on Moravian square. The festival began, and began exactly as it is supposed to – in a lively way.
photo by Andrea Benešová
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Marie Mlatečková, JAMU
ECHO „WHICH COLOUR HAVE YOU PERCEIVED THE MOST DURING THE PERFORMANCE?“
Martin Modrý: ALICE_(Ƨ) BASED ON LEWIS CARROLL Jan Rec, JAMU: Concrete. Vojtěch Kába, alumnus of JAMU: Red. Kateřina Kábová, JAMU: Blue. Veronika Onheiserová, JAMU: Blue.
Veronika Onheiserová: MY ANXIETY PAX A WEAPON Lucia Lukačková, JAMU: Red. Klára, employed: Purple. Jan Valeš, JAMU: Red. Erea Arocas, Erasmus, JAMU: Metallic blue. Kryštof Šimek, JAMU: Green. Luboš, employed: Black-blue.
Alba Muñoz Da Glória: PH AEDR A‘S LOVE Dominika Machalova, Academy of performance art Banska Bystrica, Slovakia: Gold. Tereza Králiková, Academy of performance art Banska Bystrica, Slovakia: Gold. Lucas Borges, Spain: Dark silver.
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JAMU’S POINT OF VIEW /TƏˈMEɪTOƱ/, /TƏˈMⱭːTƏƱ/ So do we put it in block letters? Or use different fonts? Let´s do fonts. I speak in bold… I speak in cursive. And sometimes we meet. I have to make a confession. I didn‘t go to the ceremony, nor the parade. And I still haven‘t seen a single performance. But the parade! Check out the pictures. I nearly forgot. How was it? [to the waiter] One non-alcoholic beer. And an alcoholic one for me. Thanks. You were saying? Oh yes, the parade (!) music. colors. living sculptures. light/shadow. (not) finding the Muse. Pills against what exactly? The tree of life. And one Bolek P. And everything was sunlit. That‘s the sun of Brno. Questions. Juxtapositions. The living room or the oasis? I prefer the oasis. Shall we talk about the performances? There was plenty of people in Husa - I know, based on the number of coats. I didn‘t like it. The Polish guys? Or me in the cloakroom? Neither. But the Germans were great. Resonated quite a bit with me. Even when you read about it beforehand? Not at all. That‘s the thing. But the experience was stronger. The Alice-feeling? The terrifying freedom of identity. Today was a lot about contrasts. Either, or. Alcoholic. Non-alcoholic. I heard great things. I heard it was awful. To sit in the living room… I prefer the oasis. But still, it‘s an encounter. Of opposites. I hope there‘s no fight at the party. And if there is? So what? Still an encounter. Martin Modrý, Zuzana Tašká
photo by Monika Chupeková
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THE FIRST BASHAVEL „Can I pay with a credit card? Over and over again. The question of the night. The answer: NO!“ „Sorry, and where is the ArtBar?“ A theatre producer: „You all just have to write that every party is the best because I said so.“ „People are having fun. So regenerating…“ „Vojta doesn’t know. Vojta is a photographer. If you do not know what to do, you are a photographer.“ „You can pretend you’re dancing, but you actually not. And by this time nobody really knows and that’s just fine.“ „Hard techno with irish motives. Totally crazy. Sunshine. It makes me stressed.“ Lenka Dobrovolná, JAMU
photo by Nikola Minářová
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HUMANS OF ENCOUNTER BOLEK POLÍVKA, FESTIVAL AMBASSADOR: PARTICIPANTS IN ENCOUNTER CAN CONFRONT THEMSELVES WITH OTHER STUDENTS WITH SIMILAR DESIRES, INSPIRATIONS AND MAYBE SIMILAR FUTURE A graduate from the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts, a theatre and film actor, mime, playwright, script writer, theatre manager, the face in the posters of the first festival editions – and the ambassador of this ENCOUNTER festival edition. Bolek Polívka is all that and much more. Why are meetings of drama school students important for him? Where does he see the uniqueness of ENCOUNTER? Is there anything you feel to be unique in the ENCOUNTER festival as such? I think the answer is obvious: the festival is attended by people at the beginning of their efforts who can confront their own ideas, desires and inspirations with people having similar inspirations, and maybe even similar future. It is always good to see what theatre is like in Japan or in Portugal, and the schools coming here can in return see how we make stage performances in our country. That is certainly important and inspiring. What in particular do you see as the most important in these meetings of students of drama schools (and stage performers in general)? As for students and actors in general it is very important to look and to see, in my opinion. To see as much as you can, to watch and absorb and learn, for these are all fine and remote echoes of inspiration gaining its importance in future. All this fills a man up, enriches him. Like when you are interested in horses – you must keep looking at the horse and try to understand what this beautiful animal really wants. And festivals are an opportunity for this. When I attended the Academy, a lot of my schoolmates would never go to theatre. As if they were not interested. But this is like a swimmer who does not want to enter water before he learns to swim. Practice is important, of course, but to see, perceive, read, be interested, be impressed, be moved, that is what I see as the beautiful part of it.
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Will this edition of the festival be different for you as its ambassador? How will you spend the festival time? I would like to invite my children to the individual performances. I do not know which ones yet, but I will try to show them maximum, for they are at a good age - fifteen, thirteen and eleven. They show a keen interest in things and in life – they are now in the stage of childhood between art and sport, walk and run. What reviving encounter have you experienced recently? I have recently experienced a farewell related to encounter. I said my last good bye, we all did, to my good friend and colleague Jirka Pecha. Recently we were in Olšany, where we have a cottage, enjoying peace and spring awakening. And Marcela, my wife, switched on Jirka Pecha´s voice wishing me a happy birthday, some past birthday, we do not even know which one. His voice is so quiet and tender... a wish for life from a friend whose life has already ended. It was very sad, but refreshing at the same time. He actually became another man that will continue to exist in us. And he is not alone! You think of these friends and they – without a slight exaggeration – correct and inspire you. They smile with you and are sad of the same things. For as people say, and as it really is, they live in us. Sára Matůšová
photo by Andrea Benešová
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BEHIND THE SCENES Advertising, a newsletter, a banner, a slide, a spot, logos, GoOut, rail-ads. Not everybody understands our jargon, but we feel at home in it. Me, Kamča, Marek and Lucie and Lucie have been working hard for nearly a year to make sure everybody hears, sees, and feels the ENCOUNTER festival around them. You will find all of us in the Festival Info Centre throughout the event. We are prepared to answer all your questions, sell tickets to performances and parties, or just to sit down without you and talk. :) Before the festival was launched, we addressed various media with requests to write about the festival. We appointed the festival ambassador, this year the excellent mime, actor, and person - Boleslav Polívka. With the help of the ATD and RTDS studios we recorded videos and radio spots. We organised a press conference and an exhibition of photographs from past festival years, accessible to all of you in the Kabinet Múz café. The closer the festival commencement date was, the more intensely we worked on the GoOut booking system via which you can buy festival tickets. Now, I can only hope you will be able to see as many of the performances as possible, draw new energy, catch your muse, and be inspired, and that all of us will keep meeting. I wish you all a nice festival week! And finally I would like to thank my whole team. Kami, Marek, Luci and Luci, thank you! Nikol Hlávková The Head of Media
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DISCUSSION | SETKÁNÍ/ENCOUNTER There will be a discussion tomorrow! Discussion will focus on performances from the Main programme. This is a place where participants, theatre makers, students, pedagogues and all guests have an opportunity to meet and talk about the most interesting specifics of each production. This will include the concrete access of works, differences and procedures for production of a specific performance as well as general differences and procedures in different schools, countries and culture. The discussion will be held in english by students of doctoral and postgraduate programme at JAMU.
DISCUSSION | SETKÁNÍ/ENCOUNTER 4. 4. 2019 / 10:00 - 13:00 / DF JAMU, THE HALL 202 during the first discussions there will be space to talk about following performances: Germany: Alice_(Ƨ) based on Lewis Carrol Poland: My anxiety pax a weapon Czech Republic JAMU: The Phaidra´s Love Slovakia: Accordance! Philippines: OEDIPUS Russia: Chekhov. Next
THE MODERATORS OF THE DISCUSSION ARE: Otto Kauppinen • Paulína Mazíková • Šimon Peták • Eva Priečková
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WORKSHOPS 4. 4. / IRINA ANDREEVA / BODYMIND GAME 14.00 - 16.30 DF JAMU 202 A workshop of Physical Theatre, during which we develop the hidden possibilities of linking imagination and physical movement, using the human ability to create a mental image and influence the way the body exists. And vice versa - practicing physical exercises which affect our state of mind. What do we want to get? To get the body crawling and flexibility of consciousness. Example of the topics we will deal with: Body Ways of breathing and emotion Motion and energy Position / hold / body and mental state Consiousness Following code movement Trained attention, external and internal Working with rhythm and music Working with space - scenic composition.
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Bio: Irina studied theater direction in Chelyabinsk, then moved to St. Petersburg, where she began working with the DO-THEATER theater group. She then founded the physical theater group Teatr Novogo Fronta. Their work is based on experiments in the field between the actor‘s body and the space in which he moves. Their first production, Vremja Durak (1994), was performed throughout Europe. The group eventually settled in Prague. Irina Andreeva then began to teach around the world - dealing with inner movement, emotion, memory, and their external manifestations. Since 2002 she has worked regularly with Berlin‘s Die Etage Theater School. She performs with Theater Novogo Fronta, but also works with other theaters and groups in the Czech Republic and abroad.
WORKSHOPS 4. 4. / WORKSHOP OF AFRICAN DRUMS - GET INTO THE RHYTHM! 17.00 - 20.00 Astorka Get into the rhythm (rhythm, African drums, body music, show ...) With the help of African djembe drums, we can slip into the mysteries of the traditional rhythms of West Africa, learn to perceive the rhythm of the whole body, and dig into the SETKÁNÍ/ENCOUNTER festival!! Bio: Jiří Bouda. A music instructor and player on a range of melodic and percussion instruments. Since 2001 he has been actively performing in various musical groups and projects. An expert on the African harp, koru, djembe and balafon, he learned from masters in West African Guinea and then in England, France and Spain. His teachers of rhythm and melody include Epina Bagoura, Djakali Kone, Famadou Konate, Mohamed Bangoura, Adam Dougtas and others. He is currently composing music, teaching children and adults, and playing concerts throughout the Czech Republic. He performs with the Ritmo Factory, the Korajunglejazz group, the body percussion group Bd beat, and is involved in a number of Denbaya music projects.
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MEETING POINT THE INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF THEATRE SCHOOLS SETKÁNÍ/ENCOUNTER 2019
The Head of the Editorial Office Sára Ciancimino Editor-in-Chief Sára Matůšová Typesetting Vendula Hlaváčková Assistants of the Head Adam Harton Barbora Laierová Aneta Tkadlecová Proofreading of the Czech Version Adéla Kolková, Kateřina Balíková, Lucie Říhová Translators Kristína Melišová, Jana Nezmeškalová, Frederika Halfarová, Eliška Houserová, Markéta Štefanová, Iva Heribanová, Martin Modrý, Lenka Dobrovolná Proofreading of the English Version Adrian Hundhausen, Katarína Novotná Publisher The Janacek Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno Divadelní fakulta Mozartova 1 662 15 Brno IČ: 621156462 / DIČ: CZ62156462