Fot. Monika Chmielarz.
The Bazaar Festival is a new initiative in the cultural map of Europe. The first edition serves as a the grand finale of the two-year programme Identity.Move! supported by the Culture Programme of the European Union and coordinated by the Goethe Institute in Warsaw, the Centre for Culture in Lublin and the State School of Dance in Athens, as well as a consortium of dance and performance art institutions in Prague: Motus/Alfred ve Dvore, Ponec Theatre, Tanec Praha, and Studio Alta. Identity.Move! brings together dancers, choreographers and performers from the Europe’s “Eastern belt”, i.e. the region extending from the Baltic to the Mediterranean Sea.
The first edition of the festival will run from 18 to 22 March in Prague and will showcase the provocative visions of twenty-four artists from fourteen Central, Eastern, and Southern European countries. The festival?s central theme is identity in arts and motion, which the participating artists explore in their projects, culminating in interactive stage presentations that will be held at the newly opened Studio ALTA on Saturday, 21 March. The festival?s accompanying programme features exclusive evening performances from guest ensembles and artists, along with a series of workshops, talks, and informal events. The Bazaar Festival is part of the European Identity.Move! project and its main Czech co-organiser is Motus, the producers of ALFRED VE DVOŘE Theatre. Festival events will also be held at PONEC Theatre, Studio ALTA, and Parkhotel Prague.
The Bazaar Festival showcases new research, possibilities, developments and trends in contemporary arts and society in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe. The festival is centred on the theme of identity, personal, social, or political, which has once again become a key issue in the modern-day world. National versus global identity. West versus East. The individual versus society. How do artists from countries across Europe, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean Sea, perceive their own individual and collective identities? Answers to these questions were explored by twenty-four selected artists working in contemporary dance and related performing arts during research labs organised as part of the project.
The selected 24 artists of the Identity.Move! include acclaimed Lithuanian choreographer Agnija Seiko, provocative body-based art adventurers Alina Popa and Florin Flueras from Romania, the iconoclast dance and art performance duo Leja Jurisic and Teja Reba from Slovenia as well as Halka Třešňáková, one of the most exciting contemporary performers in the Czech Republic, who will also be presenting the results of her research at the festival during the Saturday Bazaar guided by Wojtek Ziemilski.
?I was attracted by the fact that there would be people of various ages from fourteen countries taking part in the project and that the subject of identity is being approached as a dialogue, as well as by the fact that the project offers time for research. In recent years there has been so little money for creative work that from the outset I have to concentrate on the production and everything is geared towards the final ?product?. Whereas here I have the opportunity to examine identity from various angles?, explains Halka Třešňáková.
The festival will open on Wednesday, 18 March, with a production by Russian-Austrian performance artist Oleg Soulimenko titled Old Chaos, New Order ? a quest to understand the identity of the arts in ?Eastern Europe?, where creative work takes place in contexts dominated by Western cultural frameworks. The main event of the festival is the Saturday Bazaar, where, within the framework of a complex stage installation, works by all the artists involved in the Identity.Move! project will be presented in short intervals over the course of several hours. The Bazaar Festival will then culminate with the production of a new work by Slovak choreographer and dancer Peter Šavel titled Bakkheia ? an eccentric dance performance about human isolation and the human inability to form truly close relationships with others. This production was included on the prestigious list of the top 20 Priority Companies of 2015 selected by partners in the Aerowaves network.
So what is so special about this festival within Prague?s rich cultural programme? ?Eastern and Central Europe is a region where the community of independent artists is currently rediscovering the possibilities and potential of cooperation. This is an important impulse for dozens of artists and professionals engaged in collaborative work, and equally an opportunity for Czech and international audiences. The Bazaar Festival not only showcases outstanding figures in the field of innovation, creativity and artistic research in Europe?s ?Eastern belt?, but also allows us to immerse ourselves in the whirlpool that is artistic process ? I look forward to the audience becoming witness to creative processes that reflect changes in society and our changing identity?, explains the director of Alfred ve dvoře Theatre and the project?s Prague curator Ewan McLaren.
The festival is organised as part of the Identity.Move! project, which is an international platform supporting theoretical and artistic research into identity through contemporary dance and the related performing arts. This is a two-year project supported by the Culture Programme of the European Union and coordinated by the Goethe Institute in Warsaw, the civic association Motus / Alfred ve dvoře Theatre in Prague, the East European Performing Arts Platform, the Centre for Culture in Ljubljana, and the State School of Dance in Athens.
More about Baazar Festival and Identity.Move! project
More: http://identitymove.eu/baazar.html
The local partners of the festival are PONEC Theatre, Studio ALTA, Nová síť and SE.S.TA.
The media partners of the festival are goout.cz, Radio 1, A2, Artikl, expats.cz.
Ticket prices for admission to individual performances, workshops and the Morning of Talks are:
50 CZK for arts school students, 100 CZK for students, seniors and disabled, 200 CZK for standard adult admission
Festival passes cost:
150 CZK for arts school students, 300 CZK for students, seniors, and disabled, 500 CZK for a standard adult pass
Tickets and passes can be purchased from goout.cz at: http://goout.cz/cs/ve-meste/bazaar-festival-identity-v-umeni-a-pohybu/bcuy/
