The dance highlight of the year – the 31st TANEC PRAHA festival

The 31st TANEC PRAHA International Festival of Contemporary Dance and Movement Theatre 2019 opened with the performance of the unrestrained and non-conformist choreographer Eun-Me Ahn with her production Let Me Change Your Name. Another highlight of the season will be the production OCD Love performed by the Israeli L-E-V DANCE COMPANY and the acknowledged choreographer Sharon Eyal. The grand finale will see the French acrobat and choreographer Yoann Bourgeois. The event finishes on 22 June and will take place in Prague and other 22 Czech towns.

Apart from the three world-wide known dance stars, the festival will present many outstanding international professionals from France, Switzerland as well as far-away Madagascar, Indonesia and Ghana. The programme includes a significant number of Czech artists – and not in regions only. TANEC PRAHA started to cooperate with the Prague Quadrennial (PQ), which takes place on June 6-16, and developed into the dramaturgic line Czech Dance Focus for PQ+, which is also part of the PQ programme and will present the premiere of the new festival production as well as the recent most successful co-productions of Tanec Praha. The presence of PQ international guests offers great publicity for selected pieces.

The new international festival co-production Eymen – Point of View, supported by the Czech Embassy in Ghana, started as a joint project of the choreographer and dancer Lenka Kniha Bartůňková and singer Ridina Ahmedová. They worked with the African company Ghana Dance Ensemble and invited two artists to cooperate with the Czech creative team. They created a piece, which merges traditions of Africa and Central Europe and deals with the topics of the old age and death.

“We have carefully gone through hundreds of offers to make the programme varied, of high quality and to have a chance to approach various target groups. Thus, some productions are family-friendly: they were created for adult viewers, but they are responsive even for school-age children – experiences can be shared among generations. We were also lucky to find strong contemporary statements in countries with their own long traditions, such as Madagascar, Ghana or the Indonesian island Java. Young talents from the European platform Aerowaves promise contrasts and surprises, some of them will also invite JAMU students for cooperation in a two-day workshop. Tabea Martin was once a shooting star of this platform, her original and mature approach opens taboos for teenagers and their parents. Many Czech productions will be staged as well and not only in regions, thanks to close cooperation with the PQ. There is something to look forward to,” says Yvona Kreuzmannová, the director and founder of Tanec Praha.

Czech Dance Focus for PQ+

The line allows the audiences to see the successful dance and audiovisual project GUIDE by Věra Ondrašíková, which has received many awards locally and internationally, or Viktor Černický’s extraordinary performance PLI, which received the main award from the Czech Dance Platform. Tereza Hradilková’s solo Don’t Stop, with live music by the multimedia artist Floex, or a humorous duet SAME SAME by the French-Belgian author Karine Ponties, which stars the theatre director Petra Tejnorová and the dance and choreographer Tereza Ondrová, who was acknowledged at the Czech Dance Platform for her dance performance this year. Both productions also received awards from the international jury at the same festival.

Dance in regions

The festival is a unique opportunity for presentation of the most interesting works by Czech artists in the Czech Republic, in combination with international works if possible. It is usually a combination of indoor and outdoor productions regional festival partners choose from the wide offer – see the programme TANEC PRAHA in regions.

Accompanying programme

In both Prague and the regions, we present works of selected artists in the accompanying programme, which offers workshops, discussions and photo documentation from research conducted in Africa. Perception of the production context of selected artists is important for better understanding of productions they stage.

The International Festival of Contemporary Dance and Movement Theatre TANEC PRAHA is one of the biggest events in the Czech cultural calendar. Since 1989 the festival has presented variety and high quality of latest international and local dance, provides space for experiments and trips to other genres, and as a co-producer it supports new productions.

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