Creators: Theatre Divadlo Continuo
Direction: Pavel Štourač
Visual concept, stage design: Helena Štouračová a Pavel Štourač
Costumes: Helena Štouračová
Music, sound: Jakub Štourač
Light: Tomáš Morávek
Cast: Sara Bocchini, Kateřina Šobáňová, Granada Gallego and Diana Khwaja
Production: Zuzana Bednarčiková
Booking: Nikola Križková
Premiere: 13.06.2019, Plum Yard, Molovice
Date: 31.08.2024 / Saturday
Time: 7 pm
Place: Stage, Art Factory in Lodz, 3 Tymienieckiego Street
Tickets: 30 PLN (reduced) / 40 PLN (regular)
Tickets purchase: from July 29, 2024 / via kicket.com portal (online payment) / at the festival office (payment in cash or contactless card payment)
Duration: 60 minutes (no intermissions)
Viewers' age: 15+
After the event we invite the viewers to a meeting and discussion with the artists
The discussion will be led by Małgorzata Jabłońska
The discussion will be held in Czech and Polish
DESCRIPTION OF THE PERFORMANCE
A visual poem with elements of magic imagination, absurdity and grotesqueness. The performance combines physical theatre, animation of material and objects with the principles of visual art theatre. It is an excursion to an unknown area, where nothing reminds us of our everyday awake life. It is discovering the areas which ancient cartographers described as "hic sunt dracones".
Where do all our thoughts go when we close our eyes at night? When everything, unimaginable during our waking hours, comes to life and our bodies become nothing more than material. What happens when we walk out of the room in the morning, leaving all these dreams, fears and hidden desires alone?
Allegedly, we do not have just one single self, we have several. In everyday life, these selves purposely mediate and limit each other to cope in a socially acceptable manner with daily situations. What happens if one of these uncensored selves becomes free from the others, if it becomes autonomous? The landscape where all this unfolds is uncharted territory, terra incognita.
Ancient cartographers claimed that fantastic monsters and dragons lived in these unexplored areas of the world. In Hic Sunt Dracones, parts of the human body, objects and material unite to form unimaginable landscapes, beings and stories. However, it is not a journey into far-ung regions or fantastic utopias, but a journey into our own minds and the hidden corners of our souls.
INFORMATION ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Theatre Divadlo Continuo - is an international independent theatre group led by Pavel Štourač, its director and artistic coordinator. Since 1995 the company has been settled in a little village in South Bohemia called Malovice, in a former farmstead called The Plum Yard. Continuo's productions cannot be easily categorised into genres. Movement, live music, puppets, physical acting, acrobatics, dance, along with striking visual stylization - all of these create the unique poetics of each individual production.
Continuo Theatre is a group that professes theatre as a process, a need, a way of being. Although it is often described as physical or visual theatre, it is virtually impossible to classify its work by genre. Continuo Theatre work combines physical acting with puppet theatre practices, live music, and distinctive visual stylization. Members of Continuo research an authentic, personal connection between visual artistic knowledge and physical acting, rhythm, voice, and musicality. Everyday work consists of actors' training, workshops in which they get familiar with acting, dancing and voice techniques, in both, collective and individual ways of learning and researching.
AWARDS
- 2023 - The "Expressing the Theatre with a Puppet Award" and the "Audience Award" for the performance "Hic Sunt Dracones" at "Lalka też Człowiek Festival".
- 2023 - The "Deputy Governor of the Moravian-Silesian Region Award" to Helena and Pavel Štourač, for impressive images in space, in the performance "Hic Sunt Dracones" at "Spectaculo Interesse Festival".
- 2022 - The "Skupova Plzeň Festival Award" to Helena and Pavel Štourač for directing and artistic conception of the performance "Hic Sunt Dracones".
- 2021 - The "Czech Dance Platform Special Award of the International Jury" to Jakub Štourač for the excellent interplay of musicians with the creators and performers, his contribution to the theatre works, and his presence on stage.
