4+4 Days in Motion to Fill Erpet Smíchov
5–16 October 2022
Press release 25. 8. 2022
For the twenty-seventh time, the 4+4 Days in Motion contemporary arts festival opens the doors of an abandoned Prague building. This year, from 5 to 16 October, the festival invites you to the former Erpet Smíchov sports center. Events and performances will also take place at the Archa Theatre and the Savarin Riding School
This year’s festival theme, To Be Someone Else, Somewhere Else, Sometime Else, looks at the current state of the world with a sense of humor and offers a guide to dealing with the crisis.
Erpet, formerly known as Sportovní hala TJ Tatry Smíchov, was built in 1980 in the late modernist style according to plans by the architect Zdeněk Stašek. The festival will occupy not just the building’s interior but also the outdoor sporting grounds including playing fields and swimming pools.
“We are glad that we can show visitors the downright surreal artificial landscape originally created for the needs of a former golf training course inside the building,” says Markéta Černá, speaking for the organizing team.
The generous interior spaces will be filled with an exhibition of contemporary art featuring works by some sixty-odd Czech artists such as Tomáš Svoboda, Alena Kotzmannová, Aleš Novák, Michal Pěchouček, Milan Mikuláštík, Markéta Othová, Eva Koťátková, Tomáš Vaněk, the Rafani art group, and many others. This year’s exhibition curators are Gabriela Kotíková and Denisa Václavová.
Says Václavová: “This year, the space gives us the opportunity to work with it intensively, and so the artists will create works directly for Erpet as part of a month-long residency program. We offer visitors a kind of exhibition scavenger hunt. The place itself is an experience, and visitors can discover the exhibition or explore a driving range or an abandoned pool.”
The Archa Theatre will host renowned international projects that combine multimedia work with live music, dance, and performance. Also at the Archa, you can check out an exhibition by the Slovak photographer Ctibor Bachratý.
Three years ago, Prague audiences were captivated by Italy’s most popular theater ensemble, Motus, and its internationally acclaimed performance MDLSX. This year, outstanding actress, dancer, DJ, and Gucci model Silvia Calderoni returns with the tragedy Tutto brucia (Everything Is Burning). Inspired by Euripides’s Trojan Women, it is as contemporary as it is dark. Calderoni will be accompanied by dancer Stefanie Tansini and musician R.Y.F. (Francesca Morello).
In their latest performance, Lavagem, Brazilian artist Alice Ripoll and the Cia REC group of ghetto artists mix reality with fantasy to create a delirium resembling an apocalyptic dream. The essence of the inveterate performance Lullaby for Scavengers by the talented and multifaceted London comic and video artist Kim Noble is perfectly encapsulated by its title, which certainly does not lack poetic attractiveness. Noble uses provocative humor to reveal the human condition, dealing with subjects such as death, sexuality, gender, or viruses with a dry sense of humor that combines the tragic with the absurd.
“I have three problems: capitalism, the patriarchy, and why art can’t manage to save us,” says Canadian choreographer Frédérick Gravel, who peels away the layers of his own soul in order to lay bare his fears and to release the monster of greed in the solo performance Fear and Greed, in which he exposes himself to the bone. His fluid transitions between dance, song, and self-therapy are accompanied by a rock band.
Since 2009, the 4+4 Days in Motion festival has been a member of the international In Situ network, whose current project (UN)COMMON SPACES involves collaboration with nineteen festivals throughout Europe and support for twenty new projects intended for the public space. As part of this year’s 4+4 Days in Motion, audiences can thus look forward to Belgian artist Johannes Bellinkx’s Continuum, which will take place on 14 and 15 October at the Savarin Riding School, and on 11 and 12 October, Spain’s Eléctrico 28 ensemble presents the interactive performance Frame on the streets of Smíchov.
Besides exhibitions, dance, theater, and music performances, guided tours, and a children’s program, 4+4 Days in Motion also offers its traditional festival school in which gallery managers and experts in the field of art and festival management share their experiences.
Festival PROGRAM ›
Festival venue
Erpet Smíchov sports center, Strakonická 2860/4, Praha 5 – Smíchov
Archa Theatre, Na Poříčí 1047/26, Praha 1 – Nové Město
Photographs for download: https://bit.ly/Ctyri_dny_2022_press
YouTube / Vimeo:
Eléctrico 28 https://vimeo.com/680338555
Frederick Gravel: https://vimeo.com/392554539
Alice Ripoll: https://vimeo.com/650936401
www.facebook.com/festival4dny
FB event: https://www.facebook.com/events/777143220096570
Festival partners
Realized with financial support from: City of Prague, Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, State Fund for Culture, Prague 5 Municipal District, Government of Flanders, In-Situ, Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, Slovak Institute in Prague
Media partners: Radio 1, Czech Radio Vltava, Radio Wave, Kino Aero, Světozor, Bio Oko, Přítomnost, Full Moon Magazine, idivadlo.cz, divadlo.cz
In collaboration with: Divadlo Archa, Savarin – RUN OPERUN, Les kanců, WD Lux, Stagelab, Máš umělecké střevo?, AZ Translations
