PRAGUE CROSSROADS
Dear audience,
This year’s Prague Crossroads Festival is especially dear to us because it confirms the renewal of close cooperation between European theatres and artists that came to a standstill under the Covid-19 pandemics. A host of theatres and performers from Europe and overseas are coming to participate in this event, including an artist of Mozambican-Portuguese origin performing in France, a Spanish dance company, German artists who premiered their latest show in Belgium, as well as an American ensemble with Slovak roots, who will conclude the festival. As in previous years, the New Stage will be the main festival venue, where we will bring productions that have touched us personally. It is an honour for us to welcome them here in Prague, in the heart and at the crossroads of Europe.
The sixth festival year (or eighth, if we include the two “covid” years when performances were scattered throughout the season) will take place primarily in the first half of October, presenting the productions Limbo by Victor de Oliveira; Oskara by the Kukai Dantza & Marcos Morau / La Veronal
dance companies, and ANGELA (a strange loop) by Susanne Kennedy and Markus Selg. A November festival echo will introduce a country opera Burt Turrido. An Opera by the Nature Theater of Oklahoma. This year marks the first time when the festival also acts as a co-producer, namely for Susanne Kennedy’s new project ANGELA (a strange loop), joining the ranks of leading European institutions and festivals such as the Volksbühne Am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Wiener Festwochen, Festival d‘Avignon, Festival d‘Automne à Paris, etc.
The questions embraced within this year’s festival are highly topical, yet offer no simple answers. Turning around representation and human digital footprint, the focus is placed on the identity of a human being in the contemporary world – both as an individual and as part of the community. What connects us to other people? Who may represent whom in a world of fragmented identities? How can we really stay together? Mutual closeness and distance in a globalised, decentralised world are challenges that could be solved in a quite unprecedented way through the prism of digital worlds and new technologies. The festival will show that theatre is a great place for exploring these heavy challenges we are facing today. In the framework of the festival, the New Stage has hosted special meetings of theatre professionals in the past years, tirelessly searching for the possible roles of theatre in our turbulent times: it can be a place of extraordinary experiences, a platform for narrating forgotten stories or a space for giving voice to marginalised groups.
Workshops, generally intended for students of theatre schools and the professional public, will again form an important and integral part of the programme. The festival thus fulfils its aim, i.e. meeting, also as an educational platform. All of the workshops focus on topics reflecting the main festival programme. Additional accompanying programme is to be expected, as well as the traditional discussions with the authors after each performance.
Dear audience, we are looking forward to meeting you, and we wish you a pleasant theatre experience!
Nina Jacques
Programmer of the Prague Crossroads Festival and Dramaturg of the National Theatre Drama
