Children’s palliative care, apocalyptic sci-fi about humanity, and visual art in the former National Security Corps premises

Press Release, October 1, 2024, Prague

Themes that resonate to varying degrees with society, the cultural world, and across various fields. This year’s 4 + 4 Days in Motion International Festival of Contemporary Art plans to get inside its viewers and creators. The festival launches this Friday, October 4th, at 6 PM, with exhibition openings at Hybernská 997/2, in the former headquarters of the National Security Corps, and at 8 PM with the premiere of the French production Elles vivent at ARCHA+. Over the nine festival days, viewers can also visit the Alfred ve Dvoře Theater, ARCHA+, or the Vzlet cultural hub in Vršovice. As is typical for 4 + 4 Days in Motion, the program will take place not only in cultural spaces, but also in less expected locations, such as Prague’s Republic Square or near the Bulovka and Cibulka homesteads in Prague 5. The exhibition and theater part of the program will be complemented by a lecture series on the topic of Relationships, discussions, and the Choreographic Forum. The program and tickets are available on the event website.

“International productions as well as Czech premieres develop original stories in documentary and fictional form, reporting on the contemporary world and reflecting on issues of human existence and social change. Tantehorse, for example, takes on a critical, but still fairly taboo subject in Czech society – children’s palliative care. The independent platform Temporary Collective is premiering the Czech version of their sound performance, a response to life and restrictions during the Covid period,” says festival dramaturg Pavel Štorek

Apocalyptic sci-fi about humanity, the lives of weepers and mourners, and what shape do children give freedom?

“The only theatrical performance about politics that we ask you to go see now,” wrote the French newspaper Libération about Antoine Defoort’s production Elles vivent (They Live), which is also the festival opener on October 4th at Archa. The production title refers to thoughts – they live, they have a life of their own, and it’s difficult to get rid of them. The production’s author realized that one of the few ways to kill a thought is to forget about it. But there’s a catch… The international dance company Burkicom, based in Prague, opens up the topic of artificial intelligence, and the characteristics that humans have imprinted on it. They are pretty much mostly dreams about ourselves; we’ve created machines as tools to reflect someone we ourselves would like to be and what we would like to be capable of. The production about the vision of the end that you would wish to experience becomes reality at ARCHA+. The public space will be enlivened by the independent platform Temporary Collective and their sound performance SILENT, in its Czech premiere. Republic Square will become a place where individual participants will connect by audio navigation through headphones. One voice follows another, and the joint vocal symphony is followed by reactive movement. SILENT is a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, its impact on public space, closed borders, and on the vulnerabilities of our bodies. Fosilie, led by Marta Trpišovská, Jana Látalová and Lea Švejdová, will take the audience into the world of funeral rituals and professional weepers and mourners. The performance Standing in Motion is a moving musical expansion into this universe. And for an entirely different experience, check out WASCO! from the Belgian company Voetvolk, in which children aged 6 to 12 literally draw the shape that freedom takes in their imaginations.

But that’s just a small taste of what the theatre program holds. Festival visitors can also look forward to an entire range of other Czech and international premieres, works in progress, and site-specific performances.

Places of Act in the hands of curators Kristýna Hájková and Radek Wohlmuth

The history of the building at Hybernská 2 is long and varied. It provided its guests with entertainment and pleasant times, first as an inn and then as a hotel. Before the Second World War, however, the hotel became an administrative building and housed, among other things, the Labour Office. However, it was not until 1945 that the grimmer story of this building was written, when it became the headquarters of the Ministry of the Interior. The building was home to offices, waiting rooms, interrogation rooms, and secret apartments, and the ground floor was the social club of the IXth SNB Administration (Administration for Political, Educational and Cultural Activities), also called at that time the “Administration of Songs and Dances”. The building becomes a stage for exploring relationships, the human psyche, and the world around us in the Places of Act project, featuring exhibitions, lectures, and meetings.

This year’s exhibition and lecture series, curated by Kristýna Hájková, Radek Wohlmuth, and Kamila Ženatá, delve into the inner self, relationships, and the dialogue between past and future, drawing inspiration from this recent history. For weeks now, fifty artists have been working within the labyrinthine interiors of this former police headquarters, a building that still hints at its pre-police charm, for the exhibition titled v_nitro (Inner),” explains Denisa Václavová, curator of Places of Act.

Art and education at 4 + 4 Days in Motion

The exhibitions will be complemented by guided tours, discussions, meetups with the artists and curators, and other programmes that will bring the past and present of the building and its story to life. Visitors can participate in a variety of events, including a lecture series on RELATIONSHIPS, curated and moderated by Kamila Ženatá. Leading Czech psychologists and psychotherapists will discuss group dynamics, interpersonal influence, and the origins and impact of trauma. A moderated discussion on The Position of Art Festivals in the Czech Art Scene will accompany the release of the 73rd issue of Flash Art Czech & Slovak Edition, which focuses on art festivals. Participants include representatives from Czech festivals, holding managerial, curatorial, and production roles. From October 5th to 8th, the SE.S.TA Center for Choreographic Development will host the Choreographic Forum, centered around the question: What are the roles of artist and spectator in contemporary performance art?

From October 4-13, 2024, 4+4 Days in Motion will bring its vibrant energy to cultural spaces across Prague, including Hybernská 2 as well as Vzlet in Vršovice, ARCHA+, and the Alfred ve Dvoře theatre. The programme is available on the festival website and tickets for individual events can be purchased on GoOut.

The festival is financially supported by: The Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, the City of Prague, the Czech Culture Fund, Flanders State of the Art, In Situ, Creative Europe Programme of the European Union

Media Partners: Radio 1, Radio Wave, ArtMap, Kino Aero, Bio Oko, Kino Světozor, Art&Antique, FlashArt, divadlo.cz, art2friends, Opera PLUS

In cooperation with: Kampus Hybernská, ARCHA+, Vzlet, Alfred ve Dvoře, StageLab, WD Lux, Tajpej Design, AZ Translations, FOGI design

ABOUT THE FESTIVAL | 4 + 4 DAYS IN MOTION | 4–13. 10. 2024

Since 1996, the goal of the 4+4 Days in Motion festival has been to present contemporary innovative artistic projects. Every year, about 10 international groups participate. The festival’s specific nature lies primarily in the revitalization of Prague architecture through theatre and in the presentation of international projects which the Four Days association co-produces.

Festival projects encompass all types of contemporary art (theatre, dance, music, visual art, film, video art). Every year, the festival has a specific theme – its leitmotiv. The theme this year is INNER. The twenty-ninth edition of the festival will take place from October 4th to 13th in the Hybernská 997/2 building in Prague 1, Vzlet in Vršovice, Alfred ve Dvoře, and ARCHA+.