SETKÁNÍ/ENCOUNTER 14.–18. 4. 2015

Hephaestus smiths 3

Zeus sent 4

Platos philosophized 16

Hera supplied 17

Hades from the other side 22

Dionysus hallowed 23

Ares attacks 25

Ajax’s slaughterhouse 26

Apollon fortells 27

Hermes informs 29

Aphrodite oversaw 31

Stories from Pavol Seriš´s amphoras 36

MEETING POINT

25th International Festival of Theatre Schools SETKÁNÍ/ENCOUNTER 2015

Editor in ChiefJiřina Hofmanová

Vice Editor in ChiefMichal Prax

Assistant of Vice Editor in ChiefKateřina Uhrová

RedactorsBernadeta Babáková, Kateřina Balíková, Nikol Boková, Jiřina Hofmanová, Nikol Jančíková, Milo Juráni, Dorota Kvapilová, Kateřina Lukáčová, Barbora Reichmanová, Markéta Rizikyová, Petra Srbová, Adam Steinbauer, Michaela Suchá, Miriam Šedá, Klára Škrobánková

TranslatorsVlasta Brzobohatá, Lenka Drbalová, Romana Juriňáková, Andrea Kušnírová, Kristína Pavlíková, Klára Škrobánková, Lada Štichová

Proofreading of the Czech VersionVeronika Badinová, Jan Krupa, Kristýna Kucharčíková, Martin Srba

Proofreading of the English Version Adrian Hundhausen

PhotographersDominick Benedikt, Zuzana Bobová, Petr Chodura, Jitka Janů, Václav Mach, Marek Novoměstský, Kateřina Zemanová

ComicPavol Seriš

TypesettingPetra Novotná

OrganizerJanáčkova akademie múzických umění v BrněDivadelní fakultaMozartova 1, 662 15 BrnoIČ: 62156462DIČ: CZ62156462

HEPH

AESTUS SM

ITHS

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Editorial γ

Slowly but surely I am beginning to realize that wri-ting editorials about theatre is not necessary becau-se others will tell more on further lines, maybe even younger ones. In addition, the character length of today’s edition nearly sees no borders of the reader’s capacity. So I will devote my time today to the very trendy category of food blogging, which I have alrea-dy begun yesterday by linking the ranks of the chart featuring my eating habits. Since why should I fill such a delightfully specific journalistic form with to-pics without a torrent of personal sympathy?The subsequent topic does not meet the demands of the new, neither the unexpected, nor the crea-tive but let’s take into consideration how far Wed-nesday’s chocolate spread. In addition, the liquid gold that fills the patriotic pride and the throats of the national revival (wow, a whiff of dramatic scope has blown here gently), at least that is what the aca-demic authority Vladimír Macura says. And other little lands readily join our tradition, or how many foreign participants have you met here, I point out the Moravian land, with a glass of Portugal or Pá-lava?Actually, beer and its offshoots have a noteworthy factor in the survey of the cultural otherness and dis-tance. I am not very impressed to drink something with the taste of a very ripened coffee grounds but the Irish do so with big gulps and they cannot even be bothered with the fallen foam head. However, to my big surprise, I must admit to liking their tapped, mouth-fondling fermented cider which has enchan-ted me and it has made its way with its likewise amazing deliciousness only to Poland. Czech cider has, such as any other thing in our adorable basin, although unmistakable but to my sentiment impene-trable specifics. Therefore, I am still waiting with anticipation for our domestic retailers to completely incorrectly smuggle alien drinks to our market.I consider equally as fascinating that the cyclists from the Federal Republic of Germany are able to substi-tute fruit juices with a mixture of soda and beer. Be-cause mild bitterness turns life into an unforgettable ride with the water slides in aquaparks and far away in Crete are lagging behind. Well, inspiration comes to open, relaxed minds and the vacationing Ger-mans seem to be a more than suitable target.As a true patriot, of course, I would never leave the waters of our larger and smaller breweries. Howe-ver, had it not been for the exotic trips one wou-ld not appreciate what they already have at home. Without trying to hard I have come through alcohol deliria to a similar message as one of the actresses from DAMU. Obviously, the gender quotas change everything, malt parties cease to be exclusively for men (squish squish, popularly said) similarly to the corrected erection.

With love to all nations Jiřina Hofmanová

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ZEU

S S

ENT TALK TO ME

Slovakia, Bratislava

Author: James Saunders

Language: Slovakian

Length: 80 minutes

Director: Jana Smokoňová

Script Editor: Katarína Cvečková

Costumes: Gabriela Timoranská

Set: Ema Teren

Translator: Oliver Meres

Music: Richard Autner

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The script of the play, originally called After Liver-pool and written by British playwright James Sau-nders, consists of scenes that are not strictly tied together and their succession is thus arbitrary. We follow six people and three relationships, so the play enables several interpretations based on the number of actors. The Slovak team at VŠMU chose the sim-plest (though not the worst) alternative – casting every role with a different actor. Although the play was written as early as 1971, it is still topical since relationships between two people do not really change. Seemingly innocent remarks at the beginning result in absurd conversations and eventually in rows that at first appear mea-ningless. Every word, every sentence and every re- proach has its origin somewhere in the past. We are trapped in a circle from which we eventually manage to escape.We, the audience, feel all the time as if we were pee-ping into other peoples’ homes. But eventually we realize that they actually might be our own. We have all been there, after all – incapable of normal com-munication and suffering from each others’ words or elbows. There is an absurd humor hidden in all that seriousness, which makes all of us laugh, except for those who are involved. At a given point we may laugh and have goosebumps at the same time.The performance was not stylized in any way and thus gave the impression of being natural. The actors appeared to be living the play instead of just acting it. They managed to change between several emotions in the course of just a couple of minutes, as if they were having a real row. Moreover, all the per-formances were equally good, which is quite unusual in student productions.An apple served as a perfect prop that spiced up the entire play. It was a symbol of temptation and de-sire, but also of the freshness of a new relationship. The apple, as well as a relationship of two people, is cleaned, chopped and smashed on the table and on the floor.The entire production makes an austere impressi-on, including the direction and scenography. On the stage of Divadlo U stolu stood just a few crates for apples, serving as chairs and storage space, plus a piano, two chairs and a table that functioned as a  barrier to communication or as connecting ele-ment. The end of the play offers the same hope, but also the same questions, as the end of a relationship. Will they find someone better this time? And am I going to become a better person?

Nikol Jančíková

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Merry and unfinished human banality

The incapability of communication between oppo-site sexes has always been a long-standing problem and a never-dying topic. The inscenation Talk to me through the changes of dialogue tries to find princi-ples of its functioning. We encounter three couples, who come on stage separately. They meet by chance, connect their lives and enjoy mutual affection. The play goes from the chaotic beginnings of the relati-onships through problematic phases of all couples and presents even their eventual disintegration.Space is made smaller and the performance takes place on a tiny round stage. The spectators sit on the platform and are therefore exposed to the banality of the dialogues. At the same time they witness phys-ical attacks or aggressiveness of the characters, who during critical situation expose the negative sides of their human nature.To convey a change of space actors use the back entry to the stage and the entrance for the audience. There are two pianos on the stage, two wooden stools and numerous wooden pallets. Wooden boxes with apples are stacked at the back. A data projector is also a part of the stage design with which each replica are being screened in English. Short and quickly changing scenes maintain the dynamics of the play.It is the apple which works as a symbol of sin, frames the play and illustrates various stages of relationshi-ps. When an elegantly dressed woman brings sliced apple in a glass bowl and together with her partner sits to have dinner, the audience witnesses a stereo-type of gluttony of the male egoist, who thinks only of himself and takes almost all the content of the bowl. The throwing of the whole apple also works as a foreplay. A quarrel of a cute and sweet couple over the last piece of apple uncovers the hypocrisy of rela-tionships: a willing man forcing the last piece to his partner, expecting that she will share with him at least that. However, she literally devours the last pie-ce. The situations and the play are entertaining, full of unworldliness, but the banal and sentimental are also present.How ends the apple in the hands of the three couples? Whereas for the passionate pianist it culminates with exaggerated self-pity and stomping of single pieces, for the remaining two couples the apples are “only” eaten or scattered. Six characters try to escape in vain from their own intellectual stereotypes and they usu-ally reach a reasonable compromise through mutual affection and quitting of nonsensical dialogue. Bre-ak-ups and the finale see no variety of choice as due to the infinity of twists in relationships the problems with communication and the stereotypes will repeat again and again.The play is a conversational tragicomedy, which by the form of each sketch reminds of a TV show. There is also a unifying sonnet at the beginning and the end of the inscenation. Despite of the frequent banality of each replica it reflects relationships with precision, clearly and persuasively.

Michaela Suchá

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HEART ERECTIONThe Czech Republic, Prague

Author: Team work

Language: Czech

Length: 95 minutes

Director: Petra Tejnorová

Script Editor: Ján Zaťko

Costumes: Adriana Černá

Set: Adriana Černá

Music: Jan Burian

Choreography: Jaro Viňarský

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What can I say to move you? 

In an asymptotic space marked only by parallel me-tal beams reminding us tracks of our fates, in natu-ral lighting by the fire from metallic cart, students of The Department of Alternative and Puppet acti-ng of DAMU start their original production Heart Erection. Students acting like they just left a class of an pu-ritanical English school uncover local coves of their lives with the help of simple storytelling or a lectu-re, topics, which push lower in the space by division on the outside of the beams and fight each other on the inside for an attention, for a possibility to tell the viewers their story. Anděla Blažková speaks of a paradox in a relation-ship – love means to have – and passion means to want. However, I can‘t want what I don‘t have. Jan Nedbal deals with the experience of an encoun-ter with death. From a sad story about a young girl dying of cancer becomes a harrowing tool with cy-nical gradation witch tortures the viewer, the speech ends with a cry: „ what can I do to move you“? Ima-ginary and literal candle takes Petra Kosková and confronts us with the contrast of good and evil. Pavel Kozohorský adds a problem of duality in na-ture-blurred when woman who consider themselves to be men are born and contriwise. Ivo Sedláček mo-ves us with a story about his younger brother which changes the production from revivalist and progre-ssive to intimate and moving. Jiři Šimek confesses out of pity that he couldn‘t spin a hoop on the hips or the head his whole life. Daniel Tůma represents the problem of a lie and truth. Sára Arnstein then starts a monologue about an impossibility of knowing yourself simultaneously translated into several lan-guages but it becomes even more incomprehensible. Pavel Kozohorský proves with a complicated calcula-tion that the more people is around us the more we are alone. In a mix of motions connected with sex, the meaning of the previous stories falls apart on a distant episodes, in the end there is only a shiny, greasy cocoon on the stage consisting of hugging shiny human bodies reminding embryonic stage of a fetus. In its first half, the production tries to deal with re-alistic dualistic principles, confronts us with many contrasts that manage our life which beginning was a fire that cleans us. It‘s in its own way a psy-chotherapy through communication. This experi-ence is then crushed by a second half characterized primarily by a motion. From sex to embryo until the end when everyone leaves and all that is left of us is a greasy stain.

Kateřina Lukáčová

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Erection towards climax…

Authorial theatre is a risky business. Creators are sometimes so absorbed in it that they become entan-gled in their own webs and suffocate the audience with intellectual fragments which are hard to tackle. But if all goes well it is the audience that becomes entangled in those webs. The artists lead them to a world governed by their own rules, designed not in the language of a playwright, but the expression of a team that actually has something to say. In the Heart Erection Petra Tejnorová, Jaro Viňarský and the fourth year students of KALD (Sára Arnsteinová, Anděla Blažková, Petra Kosko-vá, Pavel Kozohorský, Jan Nedbal, Ivo Sedláček, Jiří Šimek, Daniel Tůma) join these concepts and it can be said that their production is as passi-onate as the title itself. The bottom of the DnO theatre (DnO = bottom) was a bit too deep yester-day. However, diving into the depths of unknown waters did not lead to drowning. Everyone could cut their way out of the thick forest of themes. But what is the connection between the train of flu-ctuating relationships, which opens the production, and the final “powerful” image of a heart made of a  mass of bodies of naked actors? It is the themes of the philosophy of life, love, and the existence of definitive truth that recur in different versions. The actors gloss the theme of identity with originality and wit, without clichés, and spontaneously; they di-ssect death with unexpected wickedness and try to solve the polarity of good and evil and thousands of more or less great ideas. The large number of themes is surpassed only by the number ways of adapting them – from story-telling through a play with mass stylizations to brushed-up parts of physical theatre (those are, by the way, the hardest to interpret in this context). Even though the play is full of stylistic loops, it ma-nages to stick together formally. The unified team works like a clock; group choreography is precise and every action is perfectly timed. The free spirit of the authorial text is caged by strict direction but is not thwarted by it.The actors shake in strange rhythms and perform at the edge of theatre dogma in order to involve the audience. Therefore, every group action is basically a passionate attempt to ignite the famous fire in the veins and bring the audience to the final erection of the heart (and I really don’t mean a heart attack). So how does an emancipated audience respond to it? Your heart will be congested with blood and the bra-in will get sweaty or you will get absorbed in your-self. You will be excited or you will reject the play, but there is no way will you leave the theatre emotionally untouched.

Milo Juráni

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THE STONEPoland, Łódź

Author: Marius von Mayenburg

Language: Polish

Length: 90 minutes

Director: Grzegorz Wiśniewski

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So that a grandpa could be set as an example…

A grandmother – a daughter – a granddaughter. Three different lives connected through common past; the past that starts to show itself the moment all three of them return to their former house. The plot consists of parts of events that happened in the years 1935, 1945, 1953, 1978 and 1993. The author uses short flashbacks to reveal the crucial moments of one family, which tries to modify the past in their own way since they are not proud of it. But certain events cannot be overcome just by telling them to one’s dau-ghter and granddaughter in a way that is discrepant from reality. And they can never be forgotten. The acting of Barbara Wypych, who played the part of the grandmother, is truly excellent. Although she uses very obvious acting practices (bended back, limping, and lisping), her character is completely believable. This makes her every transformation into a young and full-blooded German even more impre-ssive. Similarly, Kaja Walden as the granddaughter, whose character seemed rather flat on the paper, managed to express on stage something more than just a teenage rebellion. On the other hand, Paulina Nadel as Stefanie overacts her position as a child and embodies thus all the stereotypes about children characters played by adults. Music was abundant, which I consider a positive aspect of the production. What could have been spared though were tears. Emotions can be demon-strated in many different ways besides crying, or they don’t have to be illustrated at all. It gives au-dience trust in their intelligence and they can figu-re out the feelings by themselves. In some scenes I was also irritated by excessive aggression between characters. When slaps are given verbally why do they have to be demonstrated also physically? Du-ring some rows characters proceed to unnecessary physical contact. The plot moves forward in a pleasant way, sequen-ces naturally follow each other, actors get younger and then older in a few seconds, and suddenly the play is over. The production lacks emotional peak. In the play consisting of numerous events, which are intertwined and interrupt each other, the climax is not clearly established. However, the creators could have chosen a point towards which the actors would head. Otherwise it is just a mosaic that do not culmi-nate no matter how well it forms a story. In spite of all reproofs I would like to praise the production for its traditional adaptation that is however not boring thanks to excellent acting.

Dorota Kvapilová

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Marius von Mayenburg’s Stone is based on the principle of theatre montage. The story of three generations is reconstructed through three time levels. Naturally, skeletons in the closet are revea-led and they explain the deeds of the ancestors. The family house in which the play is set is a silent wit-ness; a material object that is blotted by the sins of present and past. The main problem of the production is, in my opi-nion, the static character of the scenes. The beha-vior of the characters does not progress. In many situations characters simply sit by the table and talk. Because of the insufficient action in the play, the attention of the audience fades. The monoto-nous pace is broken only in a few scenes. The mise en scene is properly elaborated – the relationships between characters are clear and some of the scenes are very dynamic. An ideological key to the scenography is hard to find. It is simply an illustration of the interior of a house. There is not much space given to one’s own interpretation. A distinct element of the producti-on is its musical accompaniment. The actors’ performances are pleasantly simple, only the old woman being highly stylized. At certain moments, the actors try too hard and their effort to show striking emotions seems to be artificial. Tran-sitions between time levels are made by editing. A  year appears on the screen above the stage and the actors smoothly step into a new situation.I think that the most problematic features of the production are its excessive descriptiveness and rhythm. Moreover, the situations are simply descri-bed, and therefore don’t provoke the imagination of the audience. Almost everything is served on a  golden platter. I would welcome more thorough work with symbols. On the other hand the acting is mostly believable.

Adam Steinbauer

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THE ABSOLUTE HAPPINESS OF A FLY OR THE LAST MYSTIFICATION OF SALVADOR DALÍThe Czech Republic, Brno

Author: Oxana Smilková

Language: Czech

Length: 90 minutes

Director: Oxana Smilková

Script Editors: Oxana Smilková Dagmar Haladová

Costumes: Oxana Smilková Marta Kolocová Veronika Jurdová

Set: Jevgenij Kulikov

Music selection: Oxana Smilková

Choreography: Hana Halberstadt

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Latest fashion – breasts on the back!

“I, Salvador Dalí, Spanish savior of desires, have a right to my own madness.” This excerpt expresses best the atmosphere of this entire performance full of madness, phantasmagoria, chaos and love.With the flutter of butterfly wings sounding rather like a storm when it is pitch dark outside, we are taken to Catalonia, the place where young Salvador paints and draws. He finds his first muse in this place – Gala, the wife of the French poet Éluard, whom he marries at the market to the accompaniment of hens, roosters, and his faithful friend Pablo Picasso. The next stage of this extraordinary dream puts us among the characters of Dostoevsky’s novel The Idiot, identifying Salvador with Prince Mishkin, the innocent child who speaks only truth and truth only. The author of the script, Oxana Smilková, gave Dalí power over the plot of the novel and thus we can see the dead characters, or peek into their minds and understand their actions. The last section is the part of life when Dalí finds a  new muse, Amanda Lear, with whom come new friends including Tonino Guerra, an Italian script-writer who was, at the time, unveiling a new script. The audience looks inside Salvador when he talks about the children he never had. His descendants have been replaced with his paintings – the legacy surviving its author.All four actors are made an integral part of the work – searching for the soul and penetrating the heart of a man. They tried to humanize themselves and mentally develop. They also deal with animal instin-cts and passions that are often not far from those of humans.Parts of Salvador’s dreams are seamlessly interwo-ven and the viewer has time to identify with them and understand the sequence of events, although they do not have to understand the storyline itself. It is important to understand the idea, and this paves the way to one’s own interpretation.Thinking about the production, I appreciate the dy-namically used stage, consisting of three iron tubes resembling a cell (the way we remember its shape from high school). They served as swings or frames for fabulous images of Dalí and the portraits of Na-stasya Filipovna, cords, ropes, ladders and fabrics di-rectly encouraging you to perform acrobatic tricks. I mustn’t forget the actors’ amazing performances, even though a slower pace of uttering the words would do no harm to anyone.There is no more to say than: „Heaven is found ne-ither up, nor down, neither left, nor right, but in the chest of a man who has faith.“

Barbora Reichmanová

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“I have right to my own insanity!”

According to the production program the original script by Oxana Smilkova is based on the principle of textual collage. Therefore, the realization itself consists of events from life of Salvador Dalí and bi-zarre surrealistic images lacking comprehensibility, e.g. performance of dancers in Picasso’s studio or ro-oster fights. Salvador Dalí might be considered a real artist in every possible sense of the word. His perso-nality, often hunted by its own demons, was a mixtu-re of insanity and genius. Although this may sound as a review cliché, I must say that the role of an artist, who becomes a hostage of his own works, seems to be made especially for David Janošek. Actor’s expre-ssion is marked by eccentricity and he is in constant movement – he climbs the ropes or dances a passi-onate tango. Moreover, Janosek has no problems expressing artist’s bewilderment and instability. Of course, all other members of acting team also gave a brilliant and mature, streaming mostly from their endless enthusiasm. The scenes that I consider especially brilliant were those in which actors place themselves in a role of poultry, wolves and charac-ters in Dostoyevsky’s Idiot. The production puts emphasis on musical element. Passionate Spanish music can be heard in the bac-kground basically all the time, which even more hi-ghlights the passions typical for southern nations. Another acoustic perception attacking the cons-ciousness of the audience is whispering of butterfly wings, which from the very beginning accompanies especially dramatic situations, e.g. when Dalí’s muse Gala is leaving him.One of the main themes is finding one’s own soul. It happens through Dalí’s identification with other artists, Tonino Guerro and Fjodor Michajlovič Dostoyevsky. Both of them share common featu-res with Dalí’s personality. Namely, Dostoyevsky is identified with the character of prince Myskin, when other actors find out that Dostoyevsky is actu-ally the real Myskin, since he thinks like a child and therefore is a child. In Guerro’s script People and Wolves he sees himself in a situation, in which one of the wolves bites off its paw in order to be free.At some point in the play you can hear a sentence: We are all just guests of Dalí’s phantasmagoria. It is thus not necessary to understand everything; just observe his dream. Who knows, it could easily be our dream as well, our own phantasmagoria.

Kateřina Balíková

Teachers’ Meeting

Teachers’ meeting is an integral part of SETKÁNÍ/ENCOUNTER. It is the first official meeting of all te-achers who arrived at the festival. The teachers met on Tuesday at 3 o’clock in the afternoon in the rehe-arsal room of the Orlí Street Theatre where they were briefly welcomed by doc. MgA. Blanka Chládková. The greeting was followed by a short presentation of all the participants and a tasty reception compo-sed of a variety of foods from restaurants Leporelo, Bohéma and U hodného pastýře. The discounts from the offprogram tapes can be used in all of them.

Petra Srbová

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Discussion

The topic of the first festival discussion was obvi-ous – The Georgian production of Chekhov’s Three Sisters. Three members of the production team came for the early morning session came – the director Giorgi Margvelashvili, production manager Sophie Kikabidze and the actor portraying Andrei, Erekle Getsadze. The discussion was hosted (and will be hosted every morning this week) by Dagmar Haladová and Bára Chovancová, who also asked the opening questions dealing with preparations and rehearsals. The participants were informed about the three phases of preparations that lasted a whole year. This greatly contrasted with the Brit-ish practice of rehearsals lasting for a maximum of six weeks, as mentioned by one of the participants in the discussion. The director (and teacher at the same time) stressed the importance of Chekhov as a playwright suitable for young actors – although he admits that this Three Sisters is probably the most difficult production he has ever carried out with students. But the most frequent topic of the debate was the language barrier, even though the creative team tried to make the decoding of the production easier by shortening the length of the play from the original four hours to three. It was unfortu-nately not possible to get the supertitling machine that should have made communication between the audience and the stage easier. Therefore there were some events on stage that Margvelashvili had to re-explain. When the director wanted to know which moments the audience did not like, all the participants agreed that the quality of the produc-tion was extraordinary and that almost perfect stage naturalism had been achieved. Concerning this issue, the director mentioned that their initial goal was not to describe the setting in detail but to make the scene design indeterminate in order to allow the audience to focus solely on the complicated relationships between the characters. The discussion concluded with the trio mentioning the fact that this is their first ever production abroad, and that they are glad to present the work of their school.

Klára Škrobánková

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Radio on stage

“I believe that you have the tickets,” utters a smiling usherette at the entrance. Her warm welcome repre-sents the informal, relaxed feeling radiating from the classroom, where the performance takes place. I settle comfortably on the couch and observe the actors war-ming up. Music is playing. The stage? Nothing but a  large empty space, only a broadcasting studio do-minates. A table with messy clothing and a hanger on which a t-shirt hangs. A sign “ON AIR” lights up above the moderator and we are ready to start. The creators start with the fact that it is supposed to be a radio adaptation. The two characters often describe their feelings outside the dialog. The fact that their feelings often match creates a funny loop, so both actors utter the same sentences with diffe-rent expressions. Eventually, they repeat the same sentence in the dialog. This simple scenario looks very realistic. The clichéd sentences and situations are so unlikely that the behavior of the characters, indeed the whole plot, seems almost ridiculous. Another illustrative element lightening the whole mood – the cynical moderator – always intervenes when there is a risk that the whole situation on the stage might “slip” into a telenovela. During the dia-logues he munches popcorn, smirks and sometimes glosses the action on the stage. When it is necessa-ry to indicate that some time has passed during the story, he calls the actors off the stage, telling them it is high time for a song or news report. At the end, he unbelievably acts the female character that untan-gles and explains the whole story. What exactly was there to explain? The story is pretty simple. He and she meet, fall in love, he acts strangely, she thinks that he is cheating on her and runs away. He sings a romantic song (out of tune) and they get back to-gether. Apropos, he is “rolling in money”. He per-suades her to go on holiday but disappears one day. A foreign doctor tells her that he died. She does not understand. She meets the woman with whom she thought he was cheating on her. It turns out that she is his doctor and she tells her that he was terminally ill. And by the way, the doctor also tells her that she has become the sole heir to his money.

Nikola BokováElfriede Jelinek - wenn die sonne sinkt ist für manche auch noch büroschluß! Director: Juraj Marušic. Dra-maturgy: Matěj Nytra. Cast: Agáta Kryštůfková, Jakub Urbánek, Adam Mašura.

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Here a moon was half-waned and the Little Bear was dawdling silently

Director Jakub Liška presented his new verses on stage in the inscenation A Half-waned Moon. A  theatre adaptation of sonnets of the same title created by Salon původní tvorby. A collection which Liška wrote between the years 2013 and 2014 consis-ts of 14 sonnets, each having 14 verses. He managed to recapture their rhythm and sound even in the theatre play.A Half-waned Moon presents us the theme of love entwined with utter tiredness. Lyrical subject clings to the eternal hope, which I would dare to mark as the leitmotiv of the whole collection of sonnet. Beside that fear and idleness are made to be felt from the verses and are not to be ascribed only to the romantic love, but also for example to the creative process.

I repeat till weariness

that fear is masked evil

that blood is on everybody’s hands

who for comfort opinions change

Liška adjusted the scenic poems for three actors. Dominik Teleky embodies the lyrical subject, who-se echoes are created by Jaroslav Tomáš and Pavel Šupina. At the same time everything follows strict rules of the sonnet structure. Reminding us of the classics of middle-age by form, he presents ordi-nary situations according to which he chooses the words. The verses invoke imagery, echoism and of-ten contrast with each other. A great example is the motive of vomiting, which is immediately followed by a picture of a meadow full of daisies.All 14 sonnets are connected by epanastrophe. The changeovers are handled brilliantly by the actors, especially in the course of the third sonnet, during which Tomáš and Šupina represent a particular voice or more specifically a prompter, who is moc-king us in our consciousness and betrays us from our convictions.Our goals are allusively marked by desire to reach the source itself, which refers to the Ballade of the brilliant French author Francoise Villon.The specification of movement presents a motive of shamans, when Tomáš and Šupina take turns after several verses and perform a magical dance of those mystical tribes.The text excelled in its original purity, because it wasn’t disturbed by anything. Projection of the ver-ses on the wall on the contrary strengthened their function as we being the spectators connect them with a visual experience.

Markéta Rizikyová

A Half-waned Moon. Script and director: Jakub Liška. Cast: Dominik Teleky, Jaroslav Tomáš, Pavel Šupina.

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Kočébr – A Document by Lucie Harapátová.

Kočébr is a documentary film about a project by di-rector Vítězslav Větrovec, who created a play based on Czech folklore such as carnival celebrations. At first, he toured villages in Vysočina and then proceeded to a bi-gger adventure: he decided to tour villages in Eastern Turkey with his troupe. He did this to meet an entirely new culture, something that Turkish culture certainly represents for him. This meeting of cultures gave him a challenge as well as a new impetus to create. The documentary contains testimonies of troupe members about their work, how they lived together on the road, cabin fever, meeting local people, insights and highlights of their day-to-day activities as well as recordings of the performances, which tell the story of the life of a small village in Vysočina and the story of a female character from the cradle through baptism, her wedding, the arrival of her children, and finally her death and funeral. So the theme of the performance is human life delimited by birth and death. The theme is sufficiently intelligible to every human being, re-gardless of cultural differences. We find out from the testimonies of the director and the members of the en-semble that the performance was adjusted and modi-fied depending on the reaction of the audience. The director documents the confrontation of mem-bers of the troupe with a new environment domina-ted by Islamic culture. The actresses comment on the status of the women that they met during the course of the project. For example, they find out, thanks to the time spent together with the locals, that a num-ber of old customs and folk traditions in Turkey and in the Czech Republic have common roots. The main idea of documentary is to search for a uni-versal language which can mediate a dialogue between two different worlds, and which would be compre-hensible to the audience and the actors alike. It also focuses on the demarcation of the area in which the dramatic piece takes place. The imaginary stage was denoted by a circular rug, but the space that they used for the play was always the entire Turkish village.The largest benefit of the documentary is, in my opi-nion, that it shows theatre as a means of communi-cation between different cultures.

Bernadeta Babáková

Presentation of documentary about KočéBR theatre‘s travelling.

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Relax and take in your surroundings

Stanislavskij was of the opinion that it is necessa-ry to dismantle a role into the tiniest elements and rebuild a whole from them - the performance itself. However, his colleague Nikolaj Demidov believed that everything is here and now and it is only about sensing and accepting your fellow actors. This was precisely the subject of today’s workshop!As Andrei Zagorodnikov, a fourth year student of direction at Saint-Petersburg State Theatre Arts Academy said, just as a pianist has to practice daily and keep on studying, an actor also needs to carry on improving his craft. Actors need to rehearse not only before the performance itself, but also before the workshop to warm up and prepare their bodiesPhysical exercise accompanied by physical contact with fellow actors forms an important part of the method of immediate theatre. Creating eye-con-tact while walking, greeting, hugging and slapping. Actors’ training may also look like this!When the actors had warmed-up sufficiently, a final fifteen-minute session followed with an etude from Demidov’s method itself. After rehearsing a short dialogue, the actors forgot everything again and tried to pay attention to the present moment and the presence of their fellow actors. They attempted to experience the situation, feel the rehearsed words as their own, and let the emotions conjured by the etu-de permeate them. Often the atmosphere was truly dense and all of us were listening to the ticking of the clock or breathing of fellow actors. Even though it is sometimes difficult to emotionally experience the dialogue and ascribe our own content to it, I believe that all the participants learned something new and will use it in their future professions.Finally, as a point of interest, I can’t forget to men-tion the moment when I became the fictional future wife of one of the actors. It reflected the reality that even though some person is not present in the play, it doesn’t mean that he or she can’t possess a concre-te form in the minds of the actors.

Barbora Reichmanová

On the Way to Immediate Theatre – Nicolai Demidov’s Acting Technique with Andrei Zagorodnikov.

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Interview with Oleg Eremin (The Saint Petersburg Theatre Arts Academy)

1) In his dramatic works, Marius von Mayenburg usually reflects on the problems of contemporary society. In The Cold Child, do you also find similar themes that the author often considers, such as se-xual frustration, fear or rejection of fundamental human values? If so, do you consider these themes to be the key ones (within your version of the play)?

Yes, such themes are crucial in our production as well: sexual frustration that is almost maniacal, so it leads to sado-masochistic relations; cruelty in the family and cruelty toward each other as consequence. But also the monstrous loneliness of contemporary people.

2) The Cold Child is a play by the contemporary German dramatist Mayenburg. Aren’t you afraid that when it is staged outside of the German envi-ronment, the play may not be completely under-stood?

I always investigate play in a global context. I’m inte-rested in human relations but not the country where the action takes place nor the language the charac-ters speak.

3) Have you ever worked on some other contem-porary German dramatists? If so, what about their work do you find attractive?

I staged the play “The Ugly one” in 2011 in Omsk. I st-aged the documentary production “Blocade” in Berlin in 2012 in collaboration with the team “Intergalaktis-che kulture”. First of all, this type of language is attrac-tive for me. Composition and absurd. Then, I like the violence - as if through a microscope – that Mayen-burg treats the individual and his passions with. 

4) The production designer, Sergei Kretenchuk, created special shoes for your actors that evoke the tradition of the ancient theatre. Is this association deliberate? If so, why?

Because this is the game that the characters play in this story. And the price for withdrawal from the game is very expensive. They play with theatre, they play with life, they play with their family relationships.

5) According to your words, for the students The Cold Child was a demanding, but exciting task. In your opinion, which aspect of the drama represents those demands and that excitement?

The composition of the play and its temporal and geographical structure gave me the most difficult tasks. Each phrase provoked a question - is it reality or fantasy? The answer to such questions was a real complexity, so it turned into the most exciting task.

These questions were prepared by Petra Bruzlová

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β Desert Party

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Ares Charging for the Third Time

After yesterday’s playful debate in the editorial room between the female editorial staff – yes, there are no real men in here – on the topic of “women, orgasm and links between promiscuity and multiple sclerosis,” I was asked by the editor-in-chief to think about where my G-spots are. According to a new study, scientists argue that there is in fact not one but four G-spots.I have to admit that I only have one G-spot that is located pretty much everywhere because I am such a  pleasurable little mystery that nobody can find. Those who claim that they have not found me – like the G-spot – they either lie or they should call me. They are apparently on drugs of high-quality. It wouldn’t be Setkání/Encounter, if such questions would not lead me on a much more fundamental intel-lectual path. It is not really important where my G-spot is or where was that of Iveta Bartošová (famous czech singer, alcoholic and drug addict; she committed sui-cide last year around this time), but I’m wondering where Medusas would have one, especially a Gorgona. Is it even possible to call her a woman when she is half-(wo)man, half-snake? I won’t go into detail about rep-tiles as they say it would be offensive.Now, let’s take a look at it from a completely differ-ent angle,”from behind” if you will. Take a look at this place in text.

”PLACE.”

You are in the middle of reading the article Ares Charging, we are two and a half blogs in and we are about to experience exactly the same number of times more. It is, therefore, the time to undress from your snakeskin and reveal your inner latex. To sepa-rate the day from the night, pregnant lambs from the sterilized herd; the rollicking, quarrelsome Miriam from the decadent queen of gray.Brno has its own time zone. One can guess it when they look at the map. You’ll know the city once you see its shape – but what can you do when Brno has the neuter gender. It is dissimilar to the female Uhnošť or the male Aš. Brno is sexless. It acts like neutral ground that all sexes can enter – there are many of them – they come in to sign a truce. Drop the weapons, armour and clashes. Behave themselves once again as priv-ileged classes and let go of the stroboscope, put the heels on, a coat – preferably a weasel fur one. It’s like every year. With the Meeting Point Party ap-proaching, I always get into a state of mind which I do not understand myself. Forgive me, I’ll be a good

girl tomorrow… I would only add that great riders rub their manes. So? Have you rubbed yours?

Miriam Šedá

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For the following productions is possible to get FREE tickets for JAMU and Theatre science students:

16. 4. at 14.30 Switzerland/Verscio The Book of Stolen Faces [R] (Husa)

17. 4. at 16.00 Austria/Graz The Taming of the Shrew [R] (Husa)

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Thursday 16th April 2015

9.00–11.30 Discussion [OFF] Chill-out

10.00–10.30 Los Srbos [OFF] Maliňák

11.30–12.30 Yoga with Dash [WS] Astorka

12.00–13.00 Switzerland/Verscio The Book of Stolen Faces [CP] Husa

12.30–14.00 Slovakia/Bratislava Talk to me [R] Sklep

14.00–14.30 The Day When Love Comes Back to Us [OFF] 401

14.30–15.30 Switzerland/Verscio The Book of Stolen Faces [R] Husa

14.45–15.30 Meanwhile in Budapest/A Panorama of a New Generation of Hungaria Theatre Perfomers with Silvia Huszár [WS] Chill-out

16.00–17.30 Russia/Saint Petersburg The Cold Child [CP] DnO

16.00–17.30 Slovakia/Bratislava Talk to me [R] Sklep

16.00–17.00 Czech Republic/Brno – Department of Drama Education for the Deaf Timespace [BONUS] Marta

17.00–17.30 The Antique ZOO [OFF] Svoboďák

17.30–17.40 KINECT [OFF] 013

18.00–18.45 Presentation of the Prague Quadrennial 2015 [OFF] Chill-out

18.30–20.00 Slovakia/Bratislava Talk to me [R] Sklep

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19.00–20.00 Scotland/Glasgow Manning [CP] HaDi

19.15–19.25 KINECT [OFF] 013

19.30–21.00 Russia/Saint Petersburg The Cold Child [R] DnO

21.00–22.00 Scotland/Glasgow Manning [R] HaDi

from 21.00 γ Meeting Point Party [OFF] Kabinet

Infocentre:Open 13th–18th April 2015 Monday–Friday: 9.00–20.00 Saturday: 9.00–16.00 Infoline: +420 733 127 612

Theatre Faculty JAMU Mozartova 1, Brno

TICKETS

Tickets for performances can be purchased at the festival Infocentre until 30 minutes before the per-formance. At that time, any unsold tiskets will be taken to the ticket office of the theatre, where they will be old beginning 15 minutes before the perfor-mance.

Tickets pricesMain programme:Public CZK 100 Students and seniors CZK 80 JAMU students and teachers CZK 50

Off-programmeOff-programme performances are free of charge although tickets need to be collected at Infocentre

God‘s PartiesFestival participants and offprogramme wrist-band holders have a free entry to all parties, exclu-ding the γ Meeting Point Party. CZK 50 entry fee is requiered for β Desert Party, δ Disco Party and ω Mega Party.

γ Meeting Point Party:Festival participants and holders of ISIC JAMU: In advance at Infocentre: CZK 100 On the spot: CZK 150Public: In advance at Infocentre: CZK 200 On the spot: CZK 250

Off-programme wristbandAvaliable at Infocentre, price CZK 30 includes:

entry to all God‘s parties (excluding γ Meeting Point Party)discount of 10 % on the festival wardiscount to this festival restaurants:Čajovna Cesta čaje discount 15 % Novobranska 80/10Bohéma discount 10 %, Rooseveltova 11, building of Janáček TheatreLeporelo discount 10 % (excluding lunch menu), Malinovského náměstí 2, The Brno House of ArtsKabinet múz club discount 20 %, Sukova 4Černý medvěd discount 10 %, Jakubské náměstí 1DNO Restaurant & Cafe discount 10 %, Orlí 19

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FESTIVAL’S PLACES:

DIFA JAMU (Infocentre, Chill-Out Room, Dalibar, editorial office, lecture room 013, lecture room 401), Mozartova 1

Astorka – Information, education and accommoda-tion centre, Novobranská 3

Orlí Street Theatre / Music and Drama Laboratory JAMU, Orlí 19

Studio Marta, Bayerova 575/5

Goose on a String Theatre (Great Hall, Cellar Stage), Zelný trh 9

HaDivadlo, Poštovská 8d

3Trojka cafe, Dominikánské náměstí 5

Kabinet Múz club – 20% discount to Kabinet set menu, Sukova 49/4

Desert club, Rooseveltova 11

Eleven Club, Dominikánská 11

Music Lab, Opletalova 1

Malinovského náměstí

Náměstí Svobody

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