For its 21st Edition, the FQD (Festival quartier danse/Quartiers Danses Festival) presented a Czech Focus. Through a partnership between the Tanec Praha Festival and the FQD, three Czech contemporary dance companies performed at the festival from September 6th to 17th 2023, hosting 12 indoor shows and 18 urban performances.

As the FQD participated to the Czech Dance Platform in 2019 and 2022, they met Yvona Kreuzmannovà, director of one of the most prominent cultural event in the Czech Republic; the International Contemporary Dance Festival Tanec Praha she founded in 1989. The FQD now welcomed Focus Czech, featuring solo artists Martin Talaga and Karine Ponties (Temporary Collective), and duo artists Tereza Ondrová & Jaro Viňarský, as well as their creations centering around irony, questioning, honesty, and poetry.

Les Grands Ballets Canadiens at Espace Wilder presented the duet SAME SAME by Karine Ponties, a Belgian-French choreographer who collaborated with dancer Tereza Ondrová and theatre director Petra Tejnorová.

In Cinéma de Musée, the audience could see Tereza Ondrova again, this time in a duet with Jaro Viňarský What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Dance and then a preview of Call Alice performance. Jaro Viňarský completed the first part of the program “Check the Czechs” with his solo. The second part of the evening opened with a screening of Dominik Žižka’s film documentary Eymen – Point of View. The document initiator and producer Yvona Kreuzmannová led a discussion with the audience after the screening.

Finally, Martin Talaga together with three performers (Marek Menšík, Radim Klásek, Anton Eliáš) performed in the hall of the local museum.

Sources: divadlo.cz, quartieranses.com
Read more: https://quartiersdanses.com/en/
SAME SAME performance; photo: 2media