On 18 November, Akcent will start with the international conference No More Social Kissing, discussing the new forms of artistic cooperation in the post-covid times. The topics of the discussions with artists and professionals in Edinburgh, Vienna, Ghent, Sheffield, Philadelphia, Buenos Aires, Budapest, Brussels, and Beijing will be the new opportunities for sharing, artists mobility in the future, and the change of cultural patterns. “The pandemic has forced many artists to stop their production. How will the theatre be played next year? How will the activities of performing arts look like in the future? And how will the cultural patterns and audience behavior change? We want to start the key discussion for the future with our network of local and international partners,” says Ondřej Hrab, the director of the Archa Theatre.

The conference will be hosted by Robert Palmer, the former director of the Directorate of Culture, Council of Europe, with the following participants: Tim Etchells, Lola Arias, Wen Hui, Pieter De Buysser, and others.

Jan Mocek’s original gaming performance Virtual Ritual_home brings the audiences to the parallel world of online videogames (MMOG) with millions of people logging in every day. On 19 November, Urban planner Osamu Okamura, YouTuber Atlet, photographer, and gamer Adéla Vosičková will bring the performance back to YouTube where it was in the first place. It will not be only the streaming of theatre in the online space, but the thorough “live” analysis of the digital society in its environment.

Nesladim Collective and the authors of the performance The House (Without) Sleep have prepared a theatre video lullaby for the AKCENT festival. The guidelines on how to calm down and prepare the organism for sleeping will premiere on 20 November at 10 p.m.

What will be essential from 2020 in 10 years? Or in 500 years? Useless present or future? Spielraum Kollektiv asks these questions in their performative installation Useless Things. The key feature of the free theatre association of authors led by Linda and Mathias Straub is the innovative audience participation, which will happen on 21 November via an online call between an empty theatre and overcrowded households.

What will happen when the end of the world comes? How do we plan to save it and how will we take care of the others? What can girl power teach us? Are we open enough to it? Nibiru III. – LOUD RING is a postapocalyptic treatment, which invites the viewers to the world of fiction. The production that was made in association with the group of teenagers and professional artists, will be presented in an online version on 22 November. AKCENT will stage it together with TANEC PRAHA.

What is the meaning of an individual’s civic stance in the current social and political situation in Central Europe? This is the crucial question Continuo Theatre asks based on the recent news and reflection of events. The online documentary combines the excerpts from the production of Noon and the interviews with the participants of the 1968 demonstration against the occupation of Czechoslovakia, accompanied by contemporary materials, radio, and film recordings. The online document will premiere on 24 November.

The AKCENT International Festival of Documentary Theatre was born in 2010 from the need to present a new theatrical form to the Czech audience, one for which the term “documentary” was later established. “We felt it was necessary to find a place in the theatre hustle for performing arts with the social dimension and the production that is directly inspired by the current state of society,” says Jana Svobodová, the AKCENT founder and director. AKCENT set the goal to connect European and world artists with local theatremakers, whose theatrical expression is based on authentic events, stories, and social attitudes. In the past ten years, AKCENT has hosted famous artists, such as Rimini Protokoll, She She Pop, Gob Squad, Forced Entertainment, Lola Arias, Ultima Vez, Wen Hui and Living Dance Studio, and others.

International conference No More Social Kissing

Is it important to green one another with social kisses? Is it possible to create a theatre without physical contact? How have our cultural patterns changed? What will artistic mobility look like in the future? Archa will connect with artists and producers in Edinburgh, Vienna, Ghent, Budapest, Brussels, Sheffield, Aarhus, Philadelphia, Buenos Aires, Prague, and Beijing.

Panelists:

• Tim Etchells – director, Forced Entertainment, Sheffield
• Pieter De Buysser – writer, playwright, and performer, Brussels
• Wen Hui – dancer, choreographer, and director of documentary movies, Beijing
• Kira Kirsch – artistic director of Brut theatre, Vienna
• Kristof Blom – artistic director, CAMPO, Ghent
• Gyuri Szabó – director, Trafó, Budapest
• Henk Keizer – coordinator of artistic activities in agricultural areas, Arhus
• Jan Mocek – theatre director, Praha
• Lola Arias – artist and director, Buenos Aires 
• Blanka Zizka – artistic director, Wilma Theater, Philadelphia,
• James Ijames – artistic director of Wilma Theater, Philadelphia,
• Ondřej Hrab – director, Archa Theatre, Prague

The conference is streamed from Edinburgh with Robert Palmer, the international cultural expert and member of the board of directors at Archa Theatre, as the host

AKCENT Festival 18 – 24 November

PROGRAMME AVAILABLE ONLINE at www.akcentfestival.cz