Section Archive Arts
Debut album by Lesní zveř: nu-jazz adventures for your feet and head
The band Lesní zvěř has been around for some eight years, touring clubs
and festival in the Czech Republic, Germany, Slovakia, and beyond. In June,
the Brno-based group released their debut album. Their live acts are famous
for high energy levels and a powerful sound; on the eponymous album, the
mixture of jazz, psychedelia and drum’n’bass gets yet another twist
with a guest Moravian folk band
More
Opera star Renée Fleming discusses her Czech roots, singing in the language, and a planned duet with Lou Reed in Prague in November
The high point of this year’s Český Krumlov International Music
Festival will surely be Saturday’s performance by Renée Fleming, whose
programme includes her “signature piece”, Song to the Moon from
Dvořák’s Rusalka. On the eve of the festival, the great American
soprano discussed that aria, her Czech roots, performing at the Obama
inauguration, and plans to duet with Lou Reed in Prague to mark the
anniversary of the Velvet Revolution. More
The KVIFF wrap-up: a chat with film critic Phillip Bergson
As the annual film festival comes to a close in Karlovy Vary, so ends a
week of reports from Radio Prague on the goings-on at the Czech
Republic’s foremost cultural event. Saturday evening the crystal globes
will be awarded for the 44th time, and to discuss the week I had a general
chat about all things film with someone who knows film festivals from every
angle. Phillip Bergson founded the Oxford Film Festival, among others, he
has served on a number of juries, written on film for scores of
publications and has devoted a great deal of effort and interest to Czech
and Central European cinema. How did he view the festival as a whole this
year?
More
Shakespeare festival “theatrical event of the summer” says translator of new version of Merry Wives of Windsor
One of the biggest cultural events of the season in the Czech Republic, the
annual Shakespeare Summer Festival, has just begun at the Supreme
Burgrave’s House at Prague Castle. Opening the festival on Thursday night
was a new production of The Merry Wives of Windsor, starring the great
Czech comic actor Bolek Polívka as Falstaff and directed by the
Oscar-winning filmmaker Jiří Menzel.
More
Free music festival brings party to Vltava’s islands as Czech EU presidency winds down
Tens of bands and dozens of djs performed around Prague on Thursday evening
to open this year’s United Islands Festival. The event, which is in its
fifth year, is promising over 150 hours of free music to those who find
themselves down by the banks of the Vltava River between Thursday evening
and Saturday night. This year, the festival ties in with the Czech
Republic’s EU presidency, which comes to an end in less than two weeks.
David Gaydečka is the event’s organizer:
More
Art of storytelling meets art of dissent at 19th Prague Writers’ Festival
The capital event of the Czech literary calendar began this week with the
start of the 19th Prague Writers’ Festival. Each year the festival
brings
dozens of major personages to the Czech Republic from across the world.
This year the theme of “the art of storytelling” is being discussed
among the literary greats of, what festival founder Michael March calls,
“three ancient civilisations: China, Arabia, and Berkley, California.” More
Exhibition by video artist and Zidane doc creator Douglas Gordon opens at Prague’s Dox
The leading Scottish artist Douglas Gordon has an extensive new exhibition
at Prague’s Dox gallery. Blood, Sweat, Tears features photographs,
abstract statements printed on the walls and above all video, the medium
with which Gordon is most closely associated. Among the works at Dox is a
brand new version of perhaps his best known piece, 24 Hour Psycho, a
greatly slowed down treatment of Hitchcock’s classic movie. More
Rare Plastic People footage unearthed for series of collector’s DVDs
The Plastic People of the Universe are known around the world for their
refusal to comply with the Czechoslovak communist authorities throughout
the 1970s and 1980s - and their particular brand of Czech psychedelic rock
as well. In recent years, former band member Ivan Bierhanzl and filmmaker
Keith Jones have embarked upon an ambitious project to sort through the
hours and hours of historic footage of the group to make a series of DVDs
dedicated to the ‘Plastici’, but not, necessarily, as you know them.
More
Amanita Design, independent Czech games developer
Amanita Design is a Brno-based, award-winning game development studio whose
creations have become a huge hit on the internet. Their games combine
elements of the technical world with nature in a way not seen before. Their
signature game, Samorost, takes you to a universe composed of rusty parts
of old, derelict machines and mossy, gnarled stumps of rotting wood. In
this edition of the Arts, we meet the studio’s founder Jakub Dvorský.
More
Prague Spring Music Festival in full bloom
Spring has come again to Prague and with it the Prague Spring Festival. For
those of you not in the know, think not flowers and spring showers, but
rather Mendelssohn, Mozart, and the climax of the classical music calendar
in the Czech Republic. Perhaps however classical music’s simply not your
thing – in that case this is the classical festival for you. In Arts
this
week, Christian Falvey reports on the start of the three-week Prague
Spring
International Music Festival. More
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