Čo keby?

What if… is an original dance performance for three performers that delves into the realm of hypotheses – a world of possibilities, alternative paths and unrealised possibilities. At its core lies the movement between choice and fate: how far can the body go when, in a single moment, decision, chance and impulse converge?

The gentle flow of the music creates an environment in which the three performers become a triangle of energy. At times they exist as three separate beings; at others they merge into a single whole. The body comes into conflict with its own tendencies – to hesitate, to react quickly, to change direction, to move away or draw closer. The audience follows lines of movement that emerge from the smallest impulses and gradually unfold into larger patterns: from synchrony to fragmentation, from subtlety to confrontation. The performance uses no set or props – the space remains clean, open and transparent. It is precisely this clarity that allows the performers’ bodies, their mutual responses and the tension between them to stand out. What if… creates a transparent map of relationships, in which each step can become the beginning of a new reality.

The performance is also an image of the human inner world, constantly balancing between what is and what could be. It is a physical meditation on the possibility of change and the power of the moment in which we decide – or allow others to decide for us.

Michaela Šeligová was born on 1 September 1992 in Banská Bystrica. She is a graduate of the J. L. Bella Conservatory and of the Faculty of Music and Dance at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, where she specialised in the didactics of modern dance. She teaches at the J. L. Bella Conservatory in Banská Bystrica and leads its student ensemble. She is a member and co-founder of tanC o.z.

Beyond tanC, she has been involved in a number of dance projects, including productions at the Slovak National Theatre (Dobrodružstvo pri obžinkoch, Carmen a la Gypsy Devils, Čert a Káča), the Andrej Bagar Theatre (Povolanie pápež), and in Prague (Peter a Lucia). She has also been a long-standing performer at the Seefestspiele Mörbisch.

“…my freedom begins in my body – I need to move, to touch and to feel; this is where my creativity originates…”

www.tanc.sk
 ​ 

Paradise Birds

This authorial solo balances on the edge of inner conflict, unfolding as an internal journey through doubt, resistance and acceptance. The body speaks gently, at times with fragility, and within this vulnerability a deep, quiet strength gradually reveals itself. Movement oscillates between adaptation and choice, between the need for connection and the necessity of defining one’s own boundaries. In these transitions, tension emerges – not as struggle, but as a process of awareness.

The figure does not fight openly, yet neither does she disappear. Her strength lies in her capacity to listen to herself and to continue forward, even when the direction is not entirely clear. Gentleness here does not become weakness, but a form of inner resistance – a sensitive and conscious way of being. Through the body unfolds the experience of maturation, the loss of innocence, and the assumption of responsibility for one’s own decisions.

This solo speaks of a quiet, enduring strength that neither pushes nor destroys, but transforms. Of the ability to embrace contradiction, uncertainty and vulnerability as part of a deeper understanding of oneself.

Yana Reutova has been based in the Czech Republic for four years and has been intensely engaged in creative work – initially primarily with Ukrainian dancers who also fled the war to EU countries, and gradually increasingly with artists from the Czech Republic and beyond. Her newest solo represents the culmination of a two-year creative process that began during a residency with Brazilian dancer Clara da Costa, first as work on a shorter outdoor duet Womanhood. The two co-authors gradually developed its themes into the anticipated full-length indoor format, which will premiere at the TANEC PRAHA festival on 22 June 2026. The solo forms the concluding part of this programme; at the same time, each of its three parts can be presented independently, flexibly offering outdoor formats as well – for example Artist Trip, which the authors presented at the Czech Dance Platform 2025 (see photo).
Yana Reutova came to Prague from Chornomorsk near Odesa, where she led her own children’s dance studio, which achieved success in Ukraine and across Europe.
In Prague, she devotes herself both to her own artistic creation and to community work with children and their mothers, as well as with other adults and children from children’s homes. She has created the interactive children’s performances On the Way and Time of Childhood; the triptych Together Alone (I. Lost, II. Invisible Traces, III. Paradoxical Bodies, originally Endless Talks); the duet Womanhood; and the project for the Benedikt Rejt Gallery in Louny – Beauty in Strength, Strength in Beauty.
She has received support from the European initiative EFFEA – European Festivals Fund for Emerging Artists – and has presented her work in Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Spain, Brazil and France.