PerformCzech together with the Mexican partners Museo Universitario del Chopo and Coordinación Nacional de Desarrollo Cultural Infantil prepared a rich program of performances and workshops presenting the contemporary performing arts scene from the Czech Republic which will open the theatre season in Mexico City between 1^st and 24^th September 2023. The showcase of Czech experimental theatre will program performances by Czech companies and collectives based in the Alfred in the Courtyard Theatre in Prague and in Terén – Field for performing arts in Brno and both, the Mexican general and professional public will have a chance to discover puppet, object theatre, scenography and new technologies in a series of workshops led by Czech masters. 

Czech Experimental Theatre Showcase

Reality Surfing by group PYL will be presented on 2^nd and 3^rd September 2023. The non-narrative visual performance proposes to experience an alternative model of coexistence between people and inanimate entities. New relationships between everyday objects is here discovered through their materiality and presence in a space where they acquire a value equivalent to the presence of a human body. The authors invite the spectators to forget rational logics and to surf a new reality created in collaboration with sponges, oranges, machines, ghosts and other unexpected species.

The performance Rain Dance created by the group Handa Gote Research & Development will be showed two times on the 9^th and 10^th September 2023. The piece is a do-it-yourself black comedy-ritual, in which three self-proclaimed prophets attempt to save the world by performing a series of desperate and absurd rituals that lead to the destruction of objects, electronic equipment and, especially, themselves.

Insider directed by Cristina Maldonado will be presented 26 times between 1^st and 10^th September 2023. This intimate performance is designed just for two spectators and employs immersive video and virtual reality (VR) technology to navigate the edge of physical and virtual reality, which plays with perception and the sensation of being present. It is a sensory experience that uses a combination of tactile landscapes and immersive video to create parallel realities that challenge the process of cognition and shaping the way the individual uses their senses to relate to immediate reality. 

Little Visitors by Robert Smolík and Veronika Vlková is a theatre play for children, their parents, and all who love visiting others which is to be shown five times between 22^nd and 24^th September 2023. The rather peculiar hostess featuring in the play lives together with animals, mushrooms and dream creatures. She brews colourful dyes from flowers, herbs and spices, and she likes to paint. While she does so, she is either silent or she is murmuring to herself. She is happy to welcome the audience to her home, where they can look at her paintings, sit down and enjoy this miraculous meeting. 

The Czech Experimental Theatre Showcase will take place in the Museo Universitario del Chopo which became en epicenter of the underground cultures of the eighties: visual arts, performing arts, performance, literature and music. Today it is a landmark of an imaginary of urban space and a healthy link between social classes, generations, cultural scenes and areas of the city.

Learn from the Acclaimed Czech Contemporary Theatremakers

A series of workshops taught by masters and graduates of the Department of Puppetry and Alternative Theater of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (DAMU) are taking place in a period 4^th to 19^th September 2023 in the Centro Cultural España as part of the seminar “Technological frontiers: hybrid territories between body and object” / “Object theater: creative practices from matter, technology and the object”. This seminar is aimed at artists, professionals and teachers in the field of contemporary performing arts, who are interested in developing creative projects or teaching methodologies in the areas of interdisciplinary artistic performance, puppetry, object theater and the use of technological devices as scenic agents.

The educational program was prepared in collaboration with the Coordinación Nacional de Desarrollo Cultural Infantil and includes the following workshops:

• Animation with puppets, animation as character creation by Tomáš Procházka (4^th September 2023)
• Material Dramaturgy: what the object says by Cristina Maldonado (5^th September 2023)
• Scenography without borders by Mariya Kamarova and Svetlana Silich (6^th September 2023)
• When you need to make a puppet… by Robert Smolík (18^th and 19^th September 2023)

Discover our selection of Czech performances for Spanish speaking countries HERE.

The Czech Czech performing arts program in Mexico is implemented with the financial support of the European Union through the Czech Recovery Plan and the Ministry of Culture Czech Republic.

En colaboración con: 

Photo 1,2: Rain Dance by Handa Gote research & development; photo credit: Handa Gote research & development
Photo 3, 4,: Little Visitors by Veronika Vlková and Robert Smolík; photo and poster credits: Terén – field for performing arts
Photo 5, 6: Reality Surfing by PYL; photo credit: Alfred in the Courtyard Theatre
Photo 7, 8:Insider by Cristina Maldonado and the group of collaborators; photo credit: Cristina Maldonado