The site-specific project Marš! is a movement dialogue with a specific place near the Army Museum Žižkov. It is based on the majesty of the Memorial, military precision, determination and unity. At the same time, however, it exudes freedom, liberty and ubiquitous greenery. And finally, the desire of the artists to immerse themselves in the real world after a year trapped online and to let everything that has lain dormant in them all this time speak. The experience is enhanced by live music by Jan Kasal and Šimon Veselý.
Throughout the academic year, we met online and focused mainly on dance created for the camera or discussed broader choreographic issues. But what is artistic creation and artistic development or education when we just simulate it or talk about it, but there is no direct action? We decided to activate what had lain dormant in us for a year. We wanted to immerse ourselves in the atmosphere of a specific space, to react to it and, based on historical context and intuitive reactions, create a performance together that will not be limited by technology and will live in real space.
As a result of these needs and due to circumstances, we decided to focus on a place with which we want to be in close contact while responding through it to more distant areas, such as the National Monument in Vítkov. In the site-specific project Marš! we find ourselves on a road lined by the back of the Army Museum Žižkov, a place with three city benches and their small concrete nook, including at first glance less significant elements of the chosen place.
Our goal is to focus on the appearance of this place and draw on its main attributes, which are the area of the concrete wall lined with barbed wire, the path winding to the top and the common space of the park – the benches and the area around them.
On the one hand, our position is to highlight and point out the shape of the place we have chosen, on the other hand, to respond to the conditions we have encountered because of the current pandemic. We present our view of this space as such, we stylize it physically and present it as a single group, but also as individuals, i.e. each in his or her own way.
Concept, choreography
Markéta Jandová
Performers
Michaela Dzurovčínová, Lucie Charouzová, Adéla Kašparová, Eva Rezová, Natálie Vacková, Jan Razima, Jan Štrachal
Music
Jan Kasal, Šimon Veselý
Partner
HAMU
The group around Markéta Jandová consists of current or former students of the Dance Department of the Music and Dance Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts. Jandová, a dancer and choreographer who currently works as a teacher at HAMU, supervises and creates the choreography for this group.