From 22 to 28 April 2024, Prague’s Venus Theater in Švehlovka presents the ninth edition of the international Venus Days festival. Since 2015, the show has been trying to change stereotypes about “women’s art” – about what topics and with what means women create. This year, the festival initiated the creation of new theater and performance projects and will present to the Czech audience the professional creations of authors and collectives not only from the Czech Republic, but also from Spain, Ukraine, the United States of America, Poland and Slovakia.
“Although the program focuses on female authors’ work and themes, it should not be missed by any contemporary theater lover,” says festival director Barbora Šupová. “Accents that resonate in the world across artistic disciplines in response to national policies appear more prominently in the dramaturgy this year. It is mainly about physicality, mystical rituals or magic,” promises Šupová. “However, the creative teams also deal with historical references in the context of the present, which is why there are two theatrical portraits of important political actresses. Both projects, which will be presented by Ukrainian artists as part of the program, search for new meanings in history,” she adds.
Three years after its creation, an intense, emotional and wordless “theatre session” will be presented for the first time in the Czech Republic Four MorePolish Theater and Part, which is enthusiastically received by viewers and critics. A stage composition for four naked female performers interwoven with feminism and symbolism will be presented on April 28. and the festival thus closes in thought. The director Marcin Herich was inspired by visual arts, especially Albrecht Dürer’s famous linocut “The Four Witches”, and moves on the border between reality and illusion.
A performance is an honest attempt to make sense of the present, reevaluate the past and establish visions of the future People of the Sun, which will be presented in the Czech premiere on Thursday, April 25. Kyiv couple Mary & Magdalene combining music, performance and literature will present a “theater mass” based on the exploration of war, love and death based on the poetry of the Ukrainian poet of the 1960s Mykola Vinhranovsky and the works of contemporary Ukrainian writer Taras Prokhask.
In the premiere on 27.4. will also present another Ukrainian project of “feminist radical liturgy and liberal exorcism” by a Ukrainian artist Kasha Potrohosh with name VENUSES/ VENUSE/ ВЕНЕРИ. The author transforms old folk incantations, recipes or incantations containing a heavy, morbid misogynistic narrative into feminist curses. It will be preceded by a dance performance on the same day Rhythm of the Rolling Hill from the USA under the guidance of an experienced choreographer Margaret Faganwho in the past collaborated on Apple TV, Spotify and singer Dua Lipa projects.
A double portion of movement art also the whole show on Monday 22.4. opens. Czech-Spanish-Uruguayan choreographer who creates on several continents, Agáta Jarošová introduces work-in-progress production Hair, in which he finds various ways of dialogue with the element of hair, which carries social and intimate symbolism. He will follow her Martina Hajdyla Lacová with a very limited project Bodies in Progress. It will be shown exclusively only during the period when the performer is in an advanced stage of pregnancy. Each launch is therefore an unrepeatable event. “What effect does the experience of a shared existence have on a woman,” asks Hajdyla, who moves competently on the international European scene.
A strong female historical story offers and re-evaluates the popular Slovak theater NUDE, which 23.4. will present his new film in the Czech premiere Emily. Michal Belej’s original pop mosaic is loosely inspired by the life and death of the most radical figure of the women’s feminist movement in the United Kingdom, Emily Davison. In the production, Belej searches for boundaries between activism and terrorism, masculinity and femininity, victim and manipulator. Another historical figure will also be brought to life by the Czech team under the leadership Kristýna Štarhová and Pavel Šimák, which will be 26.4. repeat a multimedia project – docu, rap, movement – And don’t call me Maruška! about Maria Kudeříková, who sacrificed her short youth to fight against Nazi power.
VENUS DAYS 2024
22.-28.4.
Venus in Švehlovka, Slavíkova 22, Prague 3
https://www.venuse-ve-svehlovce.cz/
https://www.facebook.com/VenuseveSvehlovce
https://www.instagram.com/venuse.ve.svehlovce/
22. 4. from 7 p.m
HAIR. Agáta Jarošová (CZ/ES) work-in.progress
BODIES IN PROGRESS. Martina Hajdyla (CZ)
23. 4.
EMILY. NUDE Theater (SK) Czech premiere
25. 4.
PEOPLE OF THE SUN. Mariia&Magdalyna (UA) Czech premiere
26. 4.
AND DON’T CALL ME MARUSKA! Kristýna Štarhová and Pavel Šimák (CZ)
27. 4. from 7 p.m
RHYTHM OF THE ROLLING HILL. Markéta Fagan (USA) Prime Minister
VENUSES/ VENUŠE/ ВЕНЕРИ. Kasha Potrohosh. (SK/UA) premiere
28. 4.
FOUR SEAS. Teatr A Part. (PL) Czech premiere
The project is supported by programs of the European Union, the National Renewal Plan, the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, the Capital City of Prague and the City of Prague 3
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Tags: Days Venus International Theater Festival
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