Meeting Point 04 EN by Martina Víchová

SETKÁNÍ/ENCOUNTER 8–12 APRIL 2014

MEETING POINT 11 April 2014 | 04 | EN

SETKĂ NĂ?/ENCOUNTER 11 APRIL 2014

editorials

main programme

offprogramme

party

little nothing

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MEETING POINT 24th year of the International Festival of Theatre Schools SETKÁNÍ/ENCOUNTER 8–12 April 2014 Editor in Chief Martin Macháček

Vice Editor in Chief Karolína Vyhnálková

Assistant of Vice Editor in Chief Kateřina Uhrová

Redactors Kateřina Balíková, Magdaléna Baumannová,Nikola Boková, Patrik Boušek, Jasmína Finkeová, Petra Havlíková, Tomáš Kubart, Kateřina Málková, Katarína Marková, Hana Neničková, Matěj Nytra, Matěj Randár, Karolína Svitálková, Miriam Šedá

Translation Hana Smištíková, Lada Štichová

Proof Reading of Czech Version Klára Englišová, Jan Krupa

Proof Reading of English Version Adrian Hundhausen

Typesetting Martina Víchová

Photographers Michal Novotný, Marek Novoměstský, Pavel Nesvadba, Václav Mach, Romana Juriňáková, Markéta Fiurášková, Hung Vu Khanh

Organizer Janáčkova akademie múzických umění v Brně Divadelní fakulta Mozartova 1, 662 15 Brno IČO: 62156462 DIČ: CZ62156462

The Town of the Practical Children Within our section Tutorials-Tips-TricksAdvice-Brno (Editorial, in short), in which we continuously inform you about how to use Meeting Point, we bring you the next wave of useful information. I have already introduced the jacket of the journal as a useful weapon against extreme weather conditions – the monsoons, the heat and the Brno golden dragons. However, I will now shift to a far more practical recipe book and maybe I will finally answer what the festival journal is really good for. I would like to insert a personal remark. The advantage of the editor-in-chief is to write the padding nonsense about the weather – mostly in the editorial because the editors put the high-quality content on the following pages. While reviews are being created by the staff, whose writers are pushed by the uncompromising deadline – the editor-in-chief ponders quietly all day long about how to confuse the potential reader. You shall perhaps excuse some sentiment on my part and still look forward to the prompt insights of the reviewers and reporters of the festival events. However, I would now like to introduce the MOST IMPORTANT part, which never really came up. The main advantage of this graphically beautifully worked out sheet is its use in socalled “real life” – i.e., outside the world of all the theatres, artists, theatre artists (and possibly ballet dancers). Fold the journal in half, break the binding so that to the upper left corner touches the lower right one. You will have created a perfect handkerchief for the lapel of your jacket, thus highlighting the status quo of bourgeois elegance. If you don‘t have a jacket – you can create an extra fine little spade from Meeting Point and use it for your pet’s letter box. Martin Macháček

EDITORIALS

Editorial No. 5

MAIN PROGRAMME

HOW CAN I RUIN YOU IF I LOVE YOU MORE THAN LIFE... RUSSIA, SAINT-PETERSBURG Alexandr Ostrovsky Director: Maria Romanova Set: Collective work of students Costumes: Collective work of students Choreography: Collective work of students Lighting design: Piotr Kasatyev First Night: 10/4/2013 Cast: Rimma Sarkisyan, Mark Ovchinnikov, Nikita Volkov, Galina Kochetkova, Antonina Sonina, Filipenko Anton, Artem Loschilin, Anna Zhmaeva, Sofia Nikiforova, Kirill Frolov, Oleg Lukonin, Sergei Volkov

The Russian Triumph The students from Petrograd introduced themselves with a variation on Ostrovskij's The Storm. However, they do not follow it chronologically; they created their own order of crucial and side scenes. Let us thank them for the English subtitles. Although Russian is for us – Slavs – an understandable language, English is a little clearer nowadays. The performing quality of the whole team is reflected throughout the entire performance. It doesn’t matter whether it is Katya or the last man in the village. Moreover, all the actors are incredibly musically talented and exceptionally gifted singers. Without any pretension they give everything in the performance, including themselves. The authenticity of everything is supported by an open backstage and the immediate reactions of currently nonacting students to their colleagues. They 6

are on the stage the whole time; they are observers, advisors and partners. Attention to detail is noticeable; the intimate meeting between Boris and Katya is watched by all the others apart from Tihon, whose face is turned away. When they leave, his inner struggle with himself is projected outside, and a real fight with something invisible takes place. Tihon clearly loses the fight. All the scenes are memorable. Their arrangement carries new meaning as well as great emotional power. The alternation of humorous, tragic and tragicomic scenes highlights the sadness more that if the performance was completely pessimistic. This is most visible in the tentative lovemaking in a hayloft which cannot be done without a dress closed into the door, awkward gestures, alcohol or a female taking over the situation. This beautiful scene is replaced by a sadly romantic meeting of Katya and Boris at the same place. The last example may be the grotesque dance scene of the mother’s forcible matchmaking. Like the performance from Bratislava on Tuesday, the Petrograd performance assumes knowledge of the original drama. The only difference is that in the case of Russian students, the interpretation does not meet with incomprehension – even when it comes to the variety of music genres. Modern recorded music alternates with live instrumental and vocal music, and ends with a sacred chorus, The Lord’s Prayer by Nikolay Kedrov. The varied music corresponds to the atmosphere of every situation and carries meaning. The staging is dynamic – quiet scenes alternate with more intense ones. The characters are not black and white. Tihon’s mother is a neurotic bitch, but at the same time she is a longing, seductive and lustful woman. The Petrograd students’ “Storm” is youthful, fresh, honest, without exaggerated ambitions but still effective. Just one more thing: What is the matter with the Goose, everyone there walks in a circle, as if they were on a string?! Kateřina Málková 7

A Storm of Individualities In recent years, the festival, perhaps unintentionally, has focused on reminding the audience of the rarely performed but ambitious dramas by Alexandr Nikolajevič Ostrovskij. He was one of the greatest representatives of the Russian realistic period of the 19th century. After last year’s staging of A Profitable Position by VŠMU, a director-dominated play, this year there is a distinctive reconstruction of the play The Storm in the program (like last year, performed at the Goose on a String Theatre). The play was chosen by director Maria Romanova, who adapted it as a sequence of performances, intimate dramas, conflicts and monologues directed straight at the audience. In the final 90 minute staging she included naturalistic as well as scenic effects. Though some specific details of the story are lost in the fast pace of the changes, the main story line (one that the director didn’t attempt to marginalise – quite the contrary) remains visible. And the strings of cheerless partner meetings, secret loves and terrible consequences of sinful acts of a broad group of characters are combined in one huge linear and suggestive chain of thunder, rain and lightning. The escalation of tension in the scenes shows the misunderstanding of the married couple Tichon and Katja, and the efforts of the suffering girl to escape from imprisonment in a preordained life. They are clutched in the motif of a locked, impermeable door with which the rural characters struggle, both soberly and with exaggeration. The rugged “Goose on a String” stage, which the producers decorated only with a dummy entry door, small furniture and a central changing area with plastic layers, offers more options for spatial play. There are twelve actors who continually meet and gather together, and it is impossible to perceive distress as their only trait. Gradually, they seem to be more and more free, bold and open. A main weapon in this episodic scene network is their charismatic, non-confluent individualities by which each person differs from another – although there may be a similar daunting fate for every oppressed member of the flock. 8

This diverse, constantly surprising dimension of the staging is strengthened and modernized by the director through dance music, during which group interplay features a psychologizing style, tricks with the figure of a Lilliputian (made by the actors) who is striving to light a cigarette, and naturalistic usage of natural materials (clay, hay, mud). This allows the spectator to get involved in the excellent interplay of translated images of a human being struggling with his or her senses. MatÄ&#x203A;j Nytra

STUCK IN THE MUD BELGIUM, ANTWERP Nina Herbosch Director: Freek Vielen Script Editor: Nina Herbosch Set: Nina Herbosch, Freek Vielen, Lucas Vandervost Costumes: Nina Herbosch Music: Antsy Pants, Charles Bernstein, Sleeper, Brother Dege Lighting Design: Nina Herbosch, Freek Vielen, Rik Suijs, Hugo Moens First Night: 23/5/2013 Cast: Nina Herbosch

Alice in “Reflectionland” Finding one’s owns self and a place in life – these are the main themes of a performance that was strongly influenced by Lewis Carroll’s books Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. A girl appears on the scene, and her complexion reminds of the little heroine. She begins to recite a passage from Carroll’s book in a childishly naïve manner. This imagery is repeated several times during the performance, and toward the end these passages seem to be greatly overdone. Then, the girl continues by telling her “own” story that is parallel to Alice’s in a certain sense. She describes her childhood in a slightly weird family, working at a fast food restaurant and a dilemma over whether to leave her own roots. Nina Herbosch, the only actress and also the author of the play, accompanies her performance with photographic projections depicting her hometown and its transformation. This is in symbiosis with 10

the change in her approach towards her own self and to her surroundings. The beginning of the narrative is quick with a slightly ironic subtext. The production could, however, end somewhere in the middle, when a shift in the plot occurs (when the heroine decides to move to London). Then it starts to lose lightness and the long deliberations are rather boring. This is a long contemplation of why there are grids in the window of a house in a photo and to what purpose they are used. The actress doesn’t reach any conclusion, and so this scene (and not just this one) somehow leads to nothing. Sometimes a joke appears, but still it does not re-create the atmosphere of the first half. Nothing negative can be said about the actress’s performance. Nina Herbosch’s acting is stable throughout the whole performance; she is able to bring forth her memories accurately, and so her speech feels natural and very agreeable. The staging could be, potentially, an ideal combination of storytelling with passages from the wonderland behind the looking glass. It works initially, but the directorialdramaturgical intentions are only diluted in a vast amount of thoughts and reflections at the end. Kateřina Balíková

Unfulfillable Wishes The one who does not hide in the mud and does not get stuck in it is welcome here. Nina Herbosch’s performance has enthused me with its tenderness and directness, which could quite legitimately spur one to thought (hopefully not only me). It didn‘t even hurt too much. It all reminds me of a box of chocolates – and everything that she offered I accepted with gratitude. English frosting definitely helped the digestibility. Nothing against the Belgian (Dutch) pralines... An empty scene, a huge canvas, a microphone stand, a microphone, a glass of water. And of course, an actress... I mean, the author... I mean, the costume designer... I mean... a typical stand-up comedian similar to yourself. Typical? Not at all! If it was a stand-up (and I think it was) then it must have been the most melancholic one ever. And there were interlaced snippets from Caroll’s Alice? Wonderful? Wonderful! Only the language requirements and the amount of text slowed up some of the gags. I sometimes got a joke only after a followup phrase (so typical for stand-up), such as: “Nonetheless...” I would regret: “Damn, I missed it again... well... maybe.” “Nonsense!” said Alice loudly... “Nonsense!” says Nina covertly while talking about her home town, about London, or about life as each of us certainly knows it – about the strange neighbours, dumb regulations, about loneliness amidst many people. About a better world, which we are all supposed to create, but for whom? Where are we going? We must be crazy if we want to go somewhere where there are no lunatics. There is nothing else but tea. Everything is 12

tea. Excess of tea. It dissolves in the cups of our lives and we then drink the slush. Spending time at something else than asking questions without answers? I ask: “Why not!” When nobody sees us and yet we still feel that we‘re being watched. When we have to do things because someone told us to do them. If we can‘t listen to music because someone told us that this is not the right kind of music ... It is known that a totalitarian regime is absurd. But what Nina describes here is the totalitarianism of today. We are being forced into attitudes and options. We can be anyone but it is terribly difficult. I would like to be like Nina Herbosch – to be able to effortlessly kick the passed-out spirit and not even offer him a drink. To encourage the search for questions and not offer any answers. Leave everyone standing, prepared to guess: Which door do you choose? Patrik Boušek

CALIGULA: GOING! GOING! GONE! SLOVENIA, LJUBLJANA

Albert Camus (adapted by Ana Obreza) Director: Tjaša Črnigoj Script Editor: Maša Jazbec Translator: Jaroslav Skrušný Costume Adviser: Andrej Vrhovnik Lighting Design: Hotimir Knific, David Andrej Francky First Night: 16/6/2013 Cast: Matija Rupel, Lucija Tratnik, Benjamin Krnetić, Rok Kravanja, Robert Korošec, Nejc Cijan Garlatti, Nik Škrlec, Lovro Finžgar

Caligula Must Die For this year‘s SETKÁNÍ/ENCOUNTER, the Slovenian Theatre Company presents play by the Ljubljana director Tjaša Črnigoj: Caligula: Going! Going! Gone! If we ask the questions of who, where, when, why… to be? then Caligula is the perfect material for answering them. The emperor Caligula was a symbol of the breakdown of society – he is described as violent, sexually perverse, known for his incestuous relationship (not only) with his sister Drusilla. Caligula is a man who doesn‘t believe in the world; for him, the only certainty is death. The Slovenian production is an adaptation of the eponymous play by Albert Camus, which mainly reflects Caligula’s rebellion, rather than the violence which is most prominent in history books. Similarly, Ana Obreza’s adaptation wants to examine Caligula in a new way, since no one could ever see Caligula truthfully. However, the truth doesn’t show up even in this approach. 14

Caligula is, in this production, clad in common contemporary clothing and so are the others. They talk about the the Roman Empire in sweats and t-shirts. Only Drusilla is smart enough to be halfclothed, half-naked; she has nothing on except for stripes of blue cloth around her waist and a stylized blonde wig. The spectator will understand this as soon as Drusilla spends ten minutes painting her toenails while constantly raising her legs. In this production the director works with a minimal set, attempting rather to create the set with nothing more than the actors’ performances, which are unfortunately rather shaky. The only thing that can be considered real in Caligula’s life is his death. Caligula must die. Therefore, the main character is actually burnt with a cigarette on stage. When he falls onto the ground, he really cuts his forehead and bleeds. The actors often work with the current mood in the hall and try to respond to the audience. When someone leaves, someone else will wave, or shout at them from the stage. These moments, however, are rather isolated. The dance interludes are the most impressive part. They change the otherwise everyday atmosphere of the play, which is supported by the lights that are lit half the time in the hall, into ferocious compositions. These scenes are the most atmospheric and Cassius Chaerea is stylized in them into the dictatorial role (the historical figure of Cassius Chaerea led a plot to assassinate Caligula; Camus also works with the motif of dictatorship). So this is the only visually beautiful thing about the production and it is at the same time the least true. Petra Havlíková

“Only” a Fucking Adaptation On Thursday, we saw an adaptation of Albert Camus’s drama Caligula. The students portrayed the absolutist, cruel monarch Caligula in his attempts to gain inner freedom. However, he realizes too late that when he destroys everything around him, he will also destroy himself. Before the beginning of the performance, while the audience is being seated, the actors clad in their street clothes, delineate their acting space by playing with a rock and taking pictures of the audience and themselves. This photography foreshadowed the fact that the production focuses on the confrontation of an individual versus society, the whole Roman community. The audience became the community and the lights shone on them frequently. From the very beginning, the actors frequently addressed them and asked them to participate, for example during the scene of Caligula’s death, in which an audience member became the monarch’s murderer. He thrust the last dagger into the body by extinguishing a cigarette on the actor’s body. This principle of acting for society and talking to the audience was also emphasized by the fact that any actor destroyed by Caligula immediately became a spectator. They took off their costumes and sat in the first row on prepared seats, from where they observed the self-destructive climax of their emperor. The production therefore had two levels, the “civilian” level and the historic one. This showed up in the manner of acting as well as in the costumes, which were the only prominent visual feature of the production. The actors went from the natural and “civilian” introduction to the theatrical, charged portrayal. The physical and real cruelty in the actor’s behavior went along with the tangible content of their portrayal of the emperor Caligula. The performance was animated with music and dance. These freshened up, with their dynamics, the flow of the dramatic plot, which dragged at times. However, it wouldn‘t have dragged had it not been slowed down by 16

the language barrier that I struggled with. The Slovenian students added a couple of English lines into the text. One of these was labelling the production as just a “fucking adaptation”. The insertions created funny moments as well as intentionally alienating the audience from the acted plot. Katarína Marková

THE WAR

THE CZECH REPUBLIC, PRAGUE Emil František Burian Director: Jaroslava Šiktancová Script Editor: Zuzana Burianová Choreography: Martin Pacek Music: Emil František Burian Lighting Design: Ondřej Růžička First Night: 20/10/2013 Cast: Michal Balcar, Vojtěch Bartoš, Petr Buchta, Izabela Firlová, Iva Holubová, Tereza Krippnerová, Jakub Koudela, Marek Mikulášek, Michal Necpál, Kristýna Podzimková, Marie Radová, Marie Štípková, Štěpán Tretiag, Ondřej Vacke, William Valerián, Tereza Vítů, Josefína Voverková

Oh Pity, What a Pity That They Have Become Soldiers… The work of E. F. Burian comes alive again in this energetic rendition by the students of the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts. Burian’s legacy can be heard in the songs and the graceful and lyrical musical accompaniment. The rhythmic element of the play is the live music and the stomping of the actors. Dance mingling with the poetic text is the main means of expression. Women in black suits with heavily made up eyes are the widows of soldiers. Men in dark trousers and shirts, which they gradually drop, get dirty with black colour. Dark colours are a threat to their destiny. The folk poetry from which the work was created permeates every dance step and each released sound. The War was an integral part of the life of all young 18

people, couples, lovers and fiancés. The characters without names represent rural people – mothers, fathers, daughters, and sons. Parents wanting to marry off their daughters well. Daughters loving another man than the one that awaits them at the altar. Sons involuntarily deprived of all the pleasures of life. Departure for military service unites all the characters. Young men leave, girls remain abandoned at home. Verses from the mouths of all the characters are repeated, but each time communicate differently the loss of a loved one. The tradition of the arranged marriage, the sense of duty, the obedience to parents. All of this quenches the spontaneity of youth which oozes from all the characters. Conscription takes place through wild movements of all the actors on the scene. The pace is unified by a mass gesture of the stretching of a longbow. None of the symbols is violent but all clearly show war. Young men standing in a row with their backs to the audience during a song, stretching strips of cloth that they have across their hips as bandages. One has an injured eye, another an injured hand. All movements, word and singing are parallel to the live music. This gradation of effects, which is based on the text, is intensified by music and it deepens in its diversity the weight of the individual situations. The actors go through a variety of singing registers. Although the orchestra is playing its loudest forte, individuals are able to stand out with their singing. The choreography and the singing parts demand quite a lot from the actors. However, they deal with them admirably. Magdaléna Baumannová

Mardi Gras! Mardi Gras! E. F. Burian, a Czech icon of the Theatre of the first half of the twentieth century, wrote the libretto and music to the musical dramatic Vojna (The War). He drew from folk poetry collected by K. J. Erben, the poet. The War premièred in 1935, and then its author and director returned to it in 1954. Ever since then, it has been adapted only in fragments due to its difficulty. This was not completely standard student theatre like what we normally see at SETKÁNÍ/ENCOUNTER. The normal practice is for the graduating year-group to perform, which usually means about 10 actors. This play had seventeen actors and seven musicians who formed, last year, a group called “Voice-band” specifically for this production. It is therefore an extra-curricular project that could not be performed as a graduation project in the DISK theatre. “Voice-band” is presented as a “theatrical group of students, teachers and friends of the the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, which at its inception was a wellfunctioning team of students from one year from the Department of Drama”. The War is a sample of synthetic theatre. For the spectator, this means an assault on their senses, either through the adaptation of Burian’s original and rhythmically powerful music, sophisticated choreography by Martin Pacek, or the rhythmic vibrations caused by the lively and energetic actors’ movement on the stage. It was remarkable to see seventeen actors working as a compact body on stage. The synchronized movements of the group choreography could be the results of drill. However, it could be felt in the even more intimate pictures that everyone was on the same wavelength and that they have no reservations towards their endeavours. Individuals do not protrude, and nobody eases up during the 60-minute performance. The most impressive part, The Carnival, takes place immediately at the beginning and the riveting image does not appear until the end. This causes permanent expectations in the spectator. 20

Live polyphonic chants were performed a capella by the band, which meant that it was oftentimes hard to understand the words in the acoustically challenging space of the Orlí Street Theatre. Watching was enough. You cannot deny the timelessness of The War. Model stories of human relations, the threat of war and the life of ordinary people get different flavours in different times. The line: “I’m not doing anything but I’m fine,” got an unexpectedly robust response from the audience. The applause at the end of the play was fortunately even wilder. Matěj Randár

OFFPROGRAMME

Total Loneliness Escalating into the Madness The JAMU performance deals with the issue of human loneliness. There is a man who decided to do an experiment: for ten years, he would live in complete isolation from people. His only companion is his female dog called Rambo. A minimalistic set deepens the feeling of the main character's complete isolation, and at the same time it strengthens the notion of the research team’s observation. However, the staging mainly builds on the actors' performances. The audience witnesses the psychological breakdown of an individual who is completely convinced that his doings are important, but who is unwilling to admit that they are destroying him internally. Dominik Teleky plays his part very emotively. The main character’s condition moves into the realm of utter madness, and watching him I even felt physically uncomfortable at certain moments. From my point of view, the female dog Rambo, played by Barbora Goldmannová was an even more interesting character. On one hand, she was used as an ironic commentator on her owner’s life, but on the other hand, she was also full of love and devotion. These two ambivalent feelings were expressed very believably, and what’s more, sensitively. Although she disagreed with her owner’s behaviour and opinions (she even despised them), she was always supportive and defended him. Not to speak of the physical part of her performance, because she took on the dog’s role very faithfully. All of this was complemented by the cynical and distant scientists'/observers' commentaries that were in sharp contrast to the emotions and belief in the main protagonist. All in all, an intimate as well as shattering image was created. Hana Neničková

Stabat Mater – The Sorrowful Mother Stood The students from the Theatre Faculty of the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in cooperation with the Music Faculty decided to convert the musical composition Stabat Mater by G. B. Pergolessi into the language of the theatre in a very emotional and dramatic way. It was an excellent idea. The main characters, Mary and the Rood, are accompanied by the seven deadly sins who are clearly reigned over by Pride. With the first notes, there begins a play of bodies and gestures on the stage, accompanied by an incredible energy, sometimes even sexual tension. Mary‘s suffering from the loss of her son is reflected in the urgent pleas for all sins to be decoupled from their nature. The sins have the need to show her their superiority, but they later succumb to Mary. These scenes even contain selfflagellation. In the last part, we will also see the classical reverential image of Mary and Pride (instead of Jesus Christ), which is a remarkable allegory of good and the evil. I would have expected both faculties to put the same amount of work into the performance, but that was not unfortunately not the case. After all, live actors, a minimalist but still impressive scene and costumes should be complimented by a quartet with two singers so that the musical side is be highlighted, because that side represents approximately ninety per cent of the performance and is an integral part for its understanding. And understanding is another thing. Everyone can dig into their own conscience to figure out how proficient they are in Latin. Pergolessi put the Latin text about the suffering of Mary and the pain of losing a son into music, but I don‘t dare estimate how many people know the text in translation. I found out from the programme that each musical part has a name which hints at the storyline, but that will fortunately not give it away completely. Karolína Svitálková

Small, Stupid, Primitive Jazz Class

“I want to work not only with your bodies, but mainly with your brains,” says jazz dance tutor David Strnad. And the whole class observes this instruction. Strnad‘s most frequent sentence is: “Show me some dance!” The workshop participants are fully engaged in dancing from the very first moment. The lesson is lead with humour. Everybody is relaxed and laughing, but nobody drops the dancing enthusiasm. The working pace remains high. After a few minutes, the dancers sweat, they take off their sweatshirts and leg warmers. They, however, enjoy the dancing and the work they’ve done – this is visible on their faces. David Strnad works with the group in a way that everybody feels comfortable with: the ones who have been dancing for years as well as the ones who have just started today. He says it’s a matter of preparation and experience. Moreover, he takes it easy, which also helps. He refers to the workshop as a “small, stupid, primitive jazz class.” He explains everything several times, and it’s not a problem for him to show the movements in slow motion so that everyone knows what to do. Everybody is enthusiastic – the students he teaches regularly and the first-timers too. They all find something specific to appreciate about the workshop; but the energy Strnad puts into the dancing and the ease with which he leads the class are a common denominator for everybody. Nikola Boková

Language without Translation Wednesday brought stimuli that we could all talk about on Thursday at the morning discussion. A reprise of the Slovak Macbeth was accompanied by the festival premières of From Pinocchio by the Roman students, the Polish Two Poor Romanians who Can Speak Polish and the Viennese The Princesses. Each company sent a brave and well informed individual so we could enquire about the preparations for the performances. Each school was given 25 minutes for discussion, but the organizers contributed to the improvement of communication between artists, audience and teachers by using a new tool – a wall on which everyone can leave a message. Emiliano Russon, the young director of From Pinocchio, said this about his play: “(…) It was my schoolleaving play. I wanted to create something new, and my colleague Monica Scales was influenced by work of Pina Bauch at that time. I wanted to combine it. I didn’t know how, but I wanted to combine it,” said he explaining the initial problems with dealing with the unfamiliarity of a new emerging production. “As a director,” Russo added, “I had the same freedom as actors. We improvised.” According to Kamila Kamińská, the Polish company didn’t really start rehearsing Two Poor Romanians by reading rehearsals. She said the staging didn’t have one director; it was a collective work in the spirit of the neo-avant-garde 60’s. Professor Robert Gordon nevertheless recommended that they prepare an abstract of the play for performances that were not in Lodž. The company from Vienna was represented by M. L. Deutschmann and her colleagues. “We were reading the text over and over again, and again and again and again. We didn’t understand it, so we read it again, and after a long time we created a drama from that huge number of words.” In this case a problem already discussed reoccurs: how to adapt a text theatrically so that it is understandable? Tomáš Kubart

PARTY

Dance through to the Condoms

Yesterday‘s party was held yet again in Livingstone and the goal was to make you roll to the rhythm of swing. The one change from last time was the appearance of a “question corner” in the club where the participants of the festival could answer questions relating to art. But honestly, who would like to claim about themselves that they are an artist? Anyway, it can be seen that the participants of the festival first needed to talk about their first impressions of the day, and only then to relax by dancing wildly. Last night, they were partying for their lives. The program had prepared a dance marathon for them where anyone could win tempting prizes. People danced for an hour straight. Anyone caught relaxing even for a little while was uncompromisingly “thrown out” of the competition. You could compete in pairs but surprisingly, pairs of the same sex usually got together. More fun that way! The competition was keenly joined by the organizers of the festival and if there was anyone left without a numerical designation, then they could join the adventurers for individual tasks according to their tastes. The competition started at such a pace that during the first task – dancing with a balloon – a couple of them even burst. The second task got tougher and the participants had to spin on one leg. Nonetheless, the dancers were very resourceful! The same sex couples might have been less than thrilled about the third task because it ordered them to dance while constantly holding the other partner’s body part – there were no limits to the imagination. Finally, the whole club was dancing to the favourite Macarena when I left. Jasmína Finkeová 26

I was asked by the editor-in-chief to also “write something positive.” I really don‘t know what that is but this has happened to me for the second year in a row. I therefore decided to find something in Brno that I have so far failed to find – love. Perhaps I will cleanse my ashen karma with this. A number of witnesses have been continually pointing out to me that this is a city full of special, specific hatred but still I see Brno as an unpredictable little world. I don‘t even know whether I want to actually look for love here. I was at the Meeting Point Party. All the participants fought with toothpicks until they had little bruises all over their bodies. It was a great event where warm feelings overflowed, as they say – love caught me without me really trying. I‘ve got a few bruises and tried to disguise them under powder. Experienced visitors soon found out that under the thick layer of cake hides a thick bush of African violets. This probably increased my desirability because female participants at the Bleeding Point Party ceased to be sought after (they were even shunned by older men). A nice guy approached me. “I’ve been creating sculptures...” says a shabby – withered 50-year-old at the bar. “No one ever displayed them,” he adds. And this is how his attractiveness fell to the ground in my eyes. I remembered a friend of mine and answered: “I like sculptures in galleries.” He wouldn’t take no as an answer so I had to change his opinion manually. Miriam Šedá

LITTLE NOTHING

Where – To Fine Bruises on the Instagram

PROGRAMME

PROGRAMME APRIL 11 SETKÁNÍ/ENCOUNTER 9:00 Discussion with a breakfast

Chill out room

10:00 Encounter of teachers

Na Orlí Theatre

12:00 Scotland, Glasgow [WJ]

Nothing To Be Done

HaTheatre

15:00 Scotland, Glasgow

Nothing To Be Done

HaTheatre

15:30 Poland, Cracow [WJ]

Circle of Fifths – Fragments

Goose on a String Theatre

16:00 ENC Cinema

Chill out room

16:00 Czech Republic, Brno (JAMU)

We Love Each Other Only From the Force of Habit

Room No. 013, Theatre Faculty JAMU

18:00 Scotland, Glasgow

Nothing To Be Done

HaTheatre

18:30 Czech Republic, Brno [WJ]

Confession of Felix Krull

Theatre Studio Marta

20:00 Poland, Cracow

Circle of Fifths – Fragments

Goose on a String Theatre

20:00 Czech Night

Trojka Café

The list is subject to change. [WJ] – Way of Jury

INFOCENTRE

INFOCENTRE Theatre Faculty JAMU Room No. 4 Mozartova 1 662 15 Brno Open from the 7th to the 12th of April 2014 Monday–Friday: 9:00–21:00 Saturday:

9:00–16:00

Infoline: +420 733 127 612

TICKETS Tickets can be bought at the Infocentre 30 minutes before the performance at the latest. If the performance is not sold-out, additional ticket sales will start 15 minutes before the performance at the ticket office of the respective theatre. At off-programme performances, free seats can be taken without a ticket 5 minutes before the start.

TICKET PRICES Main programme: public – 100 Kč students and seniors – 80 Kč students and JAMU pedagogues – 50 Kč Offprogramme: Off-programme performances are free but it is necessary to collect the tickets at the Infocentre. Meeting Point Party: In advance – 100 Kč On the spot – 150 Kč

THE OFFPROGRAMME WRISTBAND Price 30 CZK per band includes:

•

discount at selected restaurants (the list of companies will be available at the Festival Infocentre and on the website)

• •

discounts on merchandise 10%

access to the VIP Lounge Club Livingstone (applies to final Festival night)

• ticket

to all Encounter nights (except 29

Meeting point party). The Offprogramme wristband is cool!

FESTIVAL WARE At Infocentre you can buy this festival ware:

• • • • • • • • • •

T-shirts (men, women) – 200 CZK Badge small – 15 CZK Badge middle – 20 CZK Canvas bag – 100 CZK Lighter – 20 CZK Glasses – 100 CZK Pendant Minimon – 100 CZK Earring Minimon 1pc – 50 CZK Brooch Minimon – 80 CZK Chocolate S/E 2014 – 30 CZK

FESTIVAL PREMISES Theatre Faculty JAMU (Infocentre, Chill Out Room, Dalibar 013) – Mozartova st. 1 Na Orlí Theatre / Music and Drama Laboratory JAMU – Orlí st. 19 Theatre Studio Marta – Bayerova st. 575/5 Goose on a String Theatre – Zelný trh sq. 9 HaTheatre – Poštovská st. 8d Melodka Club – Kounicova st. 20/22 Livingstone Club – Dominikánské sq. 5 Kunštátská Trojka Café – Dominikánská st. 9

CHILL OUT ROOM Theatre Faculty JAMU, open every festival day 9:00–20:00 hod. The chill out room is a place for all the participants of the festival who are searching for a quiet place to relax and to rest. There will be free magazines to read, board games to play, table football and a Wi-Fi connection. Soft drinks and beer will be available on tap in the chill out room from our sponsor – Starobrno brewery.

PHOTOREPORT

PHOTOREPORT FROM THURSDAY