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 September 2044 | ||||||
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The production features Sharon Eyal’s globally acclaimed BILL, Yemi A.D.’s BOHEMIAN GRAVITY and Eyal Dadon’s ARTZA, both brand-new works tailored to the Czech National Ballet dancers, which will receive their world premiere in Prague.
ARTZA
“Artza” means in Hebrew an order given to a dog to sit down or lie down and stay. When you say “Artza!” to another person, it is thus very rude, humiliating and disrespectful
“The piece deals with our inner animal we hide and rein in every day in order to fit into our society. Sometimes it feels that society is educating us, while also telling us ‘Artza!’”.
Eyal Dadon thus focuses on our inner demons we need to conquer and embrace, striving to find the balance between complying with social conventions and satisfying the desire to feel free. His choreography, tailored to the Czech National Ballet dancers, is accompanied by his own music. The National Theatre will present ARTZA in world premiere.
Eyal Dadon is a rising star of contemporary Israeli dance. After gaining renown as a performer with the Kamea Dance Company and, particularly, the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, where he began choreographing, in 2016 he founded the SOL dance company, with whom he has travelled worldwide.
BOHEMIAN GRAVITY
BIOHEMIAN GRAVITY, the very first purely theatre production made by the multidisciplinary artist, choreographer and creative producer Yemi A.D., bearing the secondary title Searching for Freedom, explores the possibilities and limits of human movement with regard to gravity – the physical, as well as the mental and social force.
”I love merging various dance styles. I don’t deem dancers to be a blank canvas on which I paint my ideas. I draw from the trove of their knowledge, experience and emotions. Sometimes I dismantle the patterns they bear within, at others I rely on them.”
Fusing street dance and contemporary styles, Yemi A.D. seeks the unbridled bohemian energy, striving to break away from the ground, while also to find the roots that connect us to the previous generations.
The multilayer production has been created by a team including a number of esteemed artists. The leading Czech fashion designer Liběna Rochová conceived the costumes. The music was composed by Jakub Strach, alias NobodyListen, a DJ and producer who has become a respected figure on the Czech and Slovak electronic scene. Tomáš “Tommy” Pražák oversaw the dancers’ acrobatic training, and the acclaimed London-based Czech photographer Eliška Sky designed the scenery.
Yemi A.D. has previously mainly worked as a choreographer in global show business, collaborating with a number of celebrated artists, including the American rapper Kanye West, for whom he has designed concerts, tours and music videos. He has also cooperated with CBS and Apple, and worked on advertising campaigns for major international brands. Yemi A.D. considers his theatre debut a true milestone in his career.
BILL
The main theme BILL pursues is the role of individuals in society, their relations with a group, part of which they are due to identical costumes, hairstyle and makeup, and, ostensibly unified movement, beating in unison. Upon closer scrutiny, however, it is evident that the harmony is imaginary, constantly disturbed and impaired. Sharon Eyal created BILL for the Batsheva Dance Company in 2010. She employed all her quintessential traits – pulsating techno music, composed by Ori Lichtik; skin-tight unitards, exposing all the dancers’ muscles, a harsh, minimalistic movement idiom, as well as a touch of absurdity.
“I love to see unison, but crooked unison. The same timing, the same shape, the same idea, the same style, but very different.”
One of the globally most sought-after contemporary dance artists, Sharon Eyal launched her career with the Batsheva Dance Company as a dancer and, later on, a choreographer and associate artistic director. In 2013, she and her long-term collaborator Gai Behar set up the L-E-V company, which has given hundreds of performances worldwide. Sharon Eyal has garnered several prestigious accolades, including the Fedora – Van Cleef & Arpels Prize for Ballet and the Landau Prize for the Performing Arts. Her choreographies have been performed by Nederlands Dans Theater, Opéra national de Paris, Staatsoper Berlin and other major companies.
Program and cast
Approximate running time: 2 hours 20 minutes, 2 intermission (30 minutes) minutes
ARTZA
Dance:
Aya Okumura
Anna Novotná
Alina Nanu
Louise Corpechot
Patrik Holeček
Jakub Rašek
Danilo Lo Monaco
Federico Ievoli
Erivan Garioli
Shadows:
Martelle Cho
Nina Fernandés
Kateřina Kodešová
Haruka Iguchi
Robert Jerjen
Roger Duart
Mathias Deneux
Marco Piraino
Bohemian Gravity
Dance:
Federica Bona
Chihiro Sudo
Anna Dal Castello
Natsuki Nishiyama
Olga Bogoliubskaia
Rachel Hickey
Haruka Iguchi
Natatia Warzabluk
Basil Schwerzmann
Giacomo De Leidi
Robert Jerjen
John Powers
Ludovico Tambara
Elias Frantziskonis
Marek Kašparovský
Marco Piraino
Bill
Dance:
Alexandra Pera
Mathias Deneux
Anna Novotná
Aya Okumura
Ludovico Tambara
John Powers
Ayaka Fujii
Natsuki Nishiyama
Jakub Groot
Alice Petit
Sami Gossart
Evgeniya Victory Gonzalez
Nana Nakagawa
Marco Piraino
Basil Schwerzmann
Robert Jerjen
Ryo Hinoue
Paul Tudor Moldoveanu
Francesco Scarpato
Prague National Theatre
The National Theatre today
The historical building of the National Theatre, constructed in 1883, is generally considered the prime stage in the CzechRepublic. It is the flagship of the National Theatre institution, today amounting to five buildings and encompassing four companies. You can see there Opera, Drama and Ballet performances.
Idea of building a stately theatre for the Czech nation
The National Theatre is the embodiment of the will of the Czech nation for a national identity and independence. Collections of money among the broad mass of the people facilitated its construction and hence the ceremonial laying of its foundation stone on 16 May 1868 was tantamount a nationwide political manifestation.
The idea of building a stately edifice to serve as a theatre was first mooted in the autumn of 1844 at meetings of patriots in Prague. It began to materialise through a request for “the privilege of constructing, furnishing, maintaining and managing” an independent Czech theatre, which was submitted to the Provincial Committee of the Czech Assembly by František Palacký on 29 January 1845. The privilege was granted in April 1845. Yet it was not until six years later – in April 1851 – that the Society for the Establishment of a Czech National Theatre in Prague (founded in the meantime) made its first public appeal to start collections. A year later the proceeds of the first collections allowed for the purchase of land belonging to a former salt works with the area of less than 28 acres, which predetermined the magnificent location of the theatre on the bank of the river Vltava facing the panorama of Prague Castle, yet at the same time the cramped area and trapezoidal shape posed challenging problems for the building’s designers.
By car
To the centre (OldTown), approach on Masarykovo nábřeží (Masaryk embankment) in the direction from the Dancing House, at the crossroads in front of the National Theatre turn right to Divadelní street and then right again to Ostrovní street to the National Theatre car park. Parking costs 50 CZK/h.
By tram
By daytime trams Nos. 6, 9, 18 and 22 and night trams Nos. 53, 57, 58, 59 to the stop “Národní divadlo” – in front of the NT historical building; by daytime tram No. 17 to the stop “Národní divadlo”.
By metro
To the station “Můstek”, line B (yellow), and then by foot on Národní street; or to the station “Karlovo náměstí” and then two stops by tram No. 6, 18 or 22 to the stop “Národní divadlo”. To the station “Staroměstská”, line A (green), and then two stops by tram No. 17 to the stop “Národní divadlo”.
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