Gala Closing of the festival: Czech Dance with world-known choreographers
This season has been exceptionally fertile at the Ponec Theatre. Dance theatre merges elements of contemporary dance with theatrical and visual approaches in a way that repeatedly takes the audience’s breath away. The NANOHACH group and DOT504 are each capable of creating this effect, but in different ways. The former has established cooperation with the internationally reknowned Nigel Charnock, the famous co-founder of the DV8 Physical Theatre. Surprisingly, he has chosen poetry as the theme of his work with Czech dancers. The result is fabulous and unexpected. Meanwhile DOT504 have deepened their co-operation with ex-members of the legendary Wim Wandekeybus´ Ultima Vez, which resulted in great success last season in the Czech Republic and abroad, for example at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Prague is not the only city where Czech talents blossom. Many of them work abroad and it is great when they come back home with different ideas and impulses. This is the case of 420PEOPLE, a group composed of ex-dancers from Jiří Kylián’s NDT, whose performance of B/olero in cooperation with Ohad Naharin, a world choreographer, is a tour de force. Such fruitfulness in the domestic field deserves to be recognized, especially when combined with new technologies, the still central and effective experimental tool used by TOW. For the first time in the festival’s history, its finale will feature Czech artists. Let the space of the O2 arena be a challenge for them.
The atmosphere of the evening will be warmed up by the perfect sound of the Yellow Sisters´ vocals in the entry hall. The space will also feature film montages of pieces that were presented at the Czech Dance Platform. TOW means laser effects and they will vibrate all your senses. Their choreographer Petra Hauerová won a SAZKA Award for “discovery in dance” in 2004. Other winners of this prestigious award will also be in attendance, including Petr Tyc, Kristýna Celbová, VerTeDance, Jaro Viňarský, Ioana Mona Popovici and Lenka Bartůňková. This year’s winner will be announced at the end of the evening. The competing works will be presented in video or live blocks, and only one of them will win the CZK 400,000 prize for best new piece. Other awards will also be announced during the course of the evening, including Dancer of the Year, Czech Dance Platform Audience Award, and Best Light Design. The evening will be moderated by Marek Vašut.
A complete programme of the evening here
