TANEC PRAHA 2009 will offer a combination of hip hop and Gershwin’s music as well as a body handled as a mobile phone

21st International festival of contemporary dance and movement theatre will be held, at an exceptional length this year, from May 23rd to June 26th in Prague and other 9 Czech towns. The culmination of the festival will be served in the form of the altogether first hosting of the famous French ensemble Montalvo-Hervieu in the Czech Republic, the Music Theatre Karlín in Prague will see them perform on June 2nd and 3rd. “It is to be an exceptional experience: the top event of the Biennale de Lyon 2008 will undoubtedly become the top event of the Czech dance season,” says Yvona Kreuzmannová, the festival director. She further comments, “Gershwin’s fascinating music reflects upon American society in all its aspects, ranging from relaxation and entertainment to serious social issues. This thematic richness is paralleled by the richness of means used by the creators to involve the audience in their visions. This effort is successful not only due to the talented dancers - hip-hopers, break dancers, steppers, performers of all colours of skin, but also due to the effect of a large screen projection and visual effects, all these elements being in absolute concordance and harmony.” The May opening of the festival will be that of the 2nd edition of the festival for parents and children – DANCE for CHILDREN. Its programme includes numerous foreign and Czech performances as well as a number of workshops for children spectators. “At the end of the Prague part of the festival, on June 26th, we shall invite the spectators to O2 Arena. There we will offer them, for the first time in the festival history, a closing gala night of exclusively Czech dance artists. This dramaturgical decision is a reaction to an exceptionally high quality work on the part of a number of Czech ensembles that have managed to establish a co-operation with top foreign choreographers.” In total, the festival will host more than twenty ensembles from all around the world, from Brazil to Iceland, from the Czech Republic to Russia. “This year’s edition will see a great deal of humorous choreographies,” comments Yvona Kreuzmannová upon the programme. Other appealing ensembles to perform at the festival are f. ex. the Swiss Compagnie Drift, Anouk van Dijk or the Slovak ElleDanse. A traditional part of the festival is constituted by European Dance Laboratories, this year enriched by a night entitled Brazilian-European Dance Laboratory.

The advanced ticket sale for all Prague performances opens on April 15th at Ponec theatre. Tickets for Montalvo-Hervieu will be purchasable from this date on also at Music Theatre in Karlín.

This year’s edition of the festival TANEC PRAHA will take place not only in Prague but also in Brno, České Budějovice, Český Krumlov, Hradec Králové, Olomouc, Pardubice, Plzeň, and Valašské Meziříčí. „We are happy for contemporary dance to be spreading around the country, for it being recognized by more and more spectators out of Prague,“ says the festival director. The regional performances include not only Czech performances (the ensembles 420PEOPLE, NANOHACH, DOT 504, VerTeDance, and Lenka Bartůňková) but also the European Dance Laboratory nights and the performance of the Swiss ensemble Drift.

It is this very ensemble that is coming to the Czech Republic to present not one but two pieces at once: “Sound Machine”, an original combination of music, sound, theatre, and dance in the rhythm of surrealism, Dadaism, and the absurd, and “Au bleu cochon” which, on the other hand, is a show full of impulsive motion and unexpected situations.

The Slovak ensemble ElleDanse will provide spectators with an opportunity to see the best of what is being created in theatre domain at our Eastern neighbours´. The piece “Canto Hondo, a deep song about her...” was awarded the “Dosky 2008” Prize for the best performance, directory, and scenic music accomplishment of the season 2007 / 2008.

The first “European Dance Laboratory“ will present artists from three countries with very different history, tradition, and present. “Bulgaria was for long limited by the “official”, traditional, and classical artistic limits set by the state. Nowadays, it is starting to emit signals of contemporary creation full of freedom,” says Yvona Kreuzmannová. Void, a choreography created by the ensemble Kinesthetic Project, a group of progressive contemporary dance and visual artists, was judged as the event of the year by both Bulgarian reviewers and spectators. Greece is undergoing a period of unexpected twists and moments of chaos which are being reflected upon by impulsive Greek artists. Accompanied by live music, Kostas Tsioukas vigorously incarnates the character of Pinocchio in his solo. Iceland, one of the most expensive “European” countries, has recently been through a crucial disillusionment. How are Icelanders used to cope with such situations? A piece created by Steinunn Ketilsdóttir, an Icelandic choreographer, and Brian Gerke, an American based in Iceland, is certainly about to reveal a fair deal about Icelandic mentality.

“The second Laboratory will present the creation of three countries that had to or still have to face various forms of threat, totality, unrest, or conflict,” says the director. The Iraqi ensemble Iraquis Bodies is coming to present an experience of artists who had to face violence in their country and whom this violence made emigrate via Jordan to Syria and eventually to the Netherlands. A totally different approach is applied by Irish artists (Legitimate Bodies Dance Company) who face their present state of affairs with humour and with a healthy distant perspective. Surprisingly, Russia sees a fast development of contemporary dance; this is also due to the expansion of talents to western artistic schools. In its piece called “My Body Is A Mobile Phone”, the ensemble Monkey Production deals with the theme of electronic media and their role within a classical love triangle.

The Brazilian-European Dance Laboratory night will see Brazil, Spain, and Cyprus contribute to the programme with their southern temperament. “A fascinating elegant motion of a Brazilian woman (Grupo Tápias) will be followed by an amusing pair of Spaniards and their DJ (Mopa Producciones S.L.). An exceptional energy and openness on the part of artists from a more isolated Cyprus is fascinating. They work in uneasy conditions; they create values from almost a zero starting point – a fact that points to how strong determination pushes them forwards,” adds Kreuzmannová.

Four festival nights will be held in the production of the Prague theatre Archa. Anouk van Dijk is a leader personality of contemporary dance in both the Netherlands and around Europe. Within NethWorks.cz, a festival of contemporary Netherlands creation, her ensemble will present a piece called “STAU”, a performance that blurs the traditional border between the spectator and the performer and thus totally reverses the experience one normally derives from contemporary dance. The choreography “UNA (Unknown Negative Activity)” by Jozef Fruček and Linda Kapetanea´s RootlessRoot Company is inspired by “Unabomber”, a terrorist who tried to fight against “the evil society of technology”. The piece is a combination of singing, speech, dance, and live music.

“This season has been exceptionally fertile at Ponec theatre. The choreographies that have arisen from it merge elements of contemporary dance with theatrical and visual approaches in such a way that the spectator’s breath is over and over again taken away,” - so far the commentary of the festival director on the festival participation of Czech creators. Both NANOHACH group and DOT 504, though each in a different way, are capable of creating this effect of taking the spectator’s breath away. The former managed to establish a co-operation with the internationally renowned Nigel Charnock, the famous co-founder of the DV8 physical theatre. The latter have taken the road of deepening the co-operation with the ex-members of the legendary Wim Wandekeybus´ Ultima Vez, the co-operation that had already been a big success during the last season. Nevertheless, Prague is not the only city of possibilities for Czech talents, many of them work abroad. This is, above all, the case of 420PEOPLE, a group composed of ex-dancers of Kylián’s NDT. Their staging Ravel´s Bolero in co-operation with Ohada Naharin, one of the “top ten” personalities of world choreography, is definitely a tour de force. “Such a fruitage in the domestic fields deserves to be pointed out, all the more when combined with new technologies – the still central and effective experiment tool used by TOW. Therefore, for the first time in the festival’s history, the festival final will be a final of Czech artists,” explains the director when asked about the festival final at O2 Arena.

The sale of tickets ranging from 120 CZK to 1.180 CZK will start on April 15th at Ponec theatre box office, in Ticketpro and Ticketstream networks, and at Celetná theatre box office. Tickets for performances held at Music Theatre in Karlín and Archa theatre are also purchasable at these theatres.

added 08. 04. 2009