Eurovision

Various topics and issues have been emerging in recent years concerning the “old continent”. There are grieves about its decreasing demographic course, the possible impacts of continuous waves of migration of the non-Europeans are examined as well as their influences on national and cultural composition of particular regions, and there is also a peculiar characteristic of Europe as a space in which people who live there automatically become the beneficiaries of many things they have nothing in common with.

The basic line of the Eurovision is the fact the culture and identity of Europe have always been created by some mesh of different nations inhabiting the same space. This mixing and mutual influencing have been creating this identity. Similarly, strong influence, on the other hand, lies in the reverse side of this fact – the inability of the nations and ethnic groups to respect the differences and to communicate. It is exactly this issue, dealing with the need of human communication, the possibility to connect past and future by communication within particular cultural tradition, which is in the focal point of the Teatro Praga. Its members are interested in a language in its linguistic as well as artistic sense of meaning; they compose the production based on the text flowing without punctuation. The sentences, thoughts and themes bump into each other, the inner, private reflections merge with theatrical actions and descriptions of phenomena and broader relations. Two actors travel about the places of all official European languages and at the same time, they try to cope with such languages the European theatre usually speaks.

One of the most important theatre ensembles of contemporary Portuguese theatre, Teatro Praga, was established in 1995. During its existence, it experienced many transformations, but with any doubt it can be characterised as the representative of the new, upcoming wave of a clear-cut and more daring theatrical thinking, focusing more on the future than the past of European theatrical narration. The creators react to current themes of an every-day life, problems of art, mainly from the aspect of communication between the artistic piece and the audience, often shifting the genre barriers. In Eurovision, they deal with the issue of communication from two points of view – they speak of the diversity and multitude of languages spoken in 45 European countries, but they also show the chaos of cultural foundations every creative person has to deal with when trying to revive the dead corpses of certain cultural traditions. Teatro Praga performs a play of various languages, asking what actually the communication is and whether there is important to understand in order to understand each other.

The result of this is a fresh and playful, but thorough and intelligent production which puts emphasis on acting and a new way of narration in theatre. In an associative way, it interconnects everything which is somehow related to the issue, it even unveils seemingly incompatible connections – e.g.: references to realistic theatre, Ibn Hassan´s definition of the post-modern art and the Eurovision song contest.

Maja Hriešik

The individualities that form Teatro Praga (a group of artists that work without director) embrace an unrepeatable theatrical practice: they are always different, in constant metamorphosis and subject to unpredictable variations of themselves.

The group finds their difference and identity not in questions such as „What do we do? What has been done?“ But in a necessity and will to live in confrontation with the answers that arise out of those questions.

The performances of this ensemble are happenings which, whilst maintaining the physical form of theatre (fiction), search for the „utmost responsibility of the spectator“, i. e. the chance to find a community amidst the fictional chaos.

Teatro Praga was formed in 1995 and is currently located in Hospital Miguel Bombarda in Lisbon. The group has been regularly creating theatre pieces co-produced by the most prestigious contemporary cultural organizations in Portugal and performed at several festivals and events in other European countries (Italy, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Hungary, Estonia and Denmark).

about the production

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