Performance
A poetic vision in time and space.
Authors and performers: Lucia Čarnecká, Jana Šturdíková, Peter Brezňan, Diana Strauszová
Set and costumes: Diana Strauszová
Music: Vlado Šarišský
Direction: authors and performers
Photo: Jana Šturdíková
Poster: Jana Šturdíková
Premiere: June 14, 2010
Feedback:
The Non.Garde Theatre Experiments with Emotions
No stage boards and no seats arranged in neat rows. The Bratislava-based experimental theatre Non.Garde is not a classic brick-and-mortar repertory theatre. The performance 4D, with which Non.Garde concluded this year’s season, truly deserves the epithet “open.” Chairs are arranged in a circle around a sort of rectangle. The audience is separated from the actors by a curtain made of white cash register receipts, which is within arm’s reach. Two women and one man walk within their “cage” and recite their own texts.
Authenticity is reflected in the texts they have written onto some of the strips of the white curtain. They gradually cut them off with scissors and read them.
During the half-hour performance, they begin to create a kind of abstract arch from the white strips in the center of the “stage.” The remaining strips fall victim to the scissors until the stage is completely revealed to the surrounding visitors. They just sit quietly, waiting for the final bow. However, it does not come. The main protagonists signal that the performance has ended when they start arranging to get coffee downstairs in the café. Only then does it dawn on the audience that it is time to applaud.
„We also wanted to achieve a visual crossover. We combine all forms of art that can be merged. Quite often, these are not classic performances but visual installations. We frequently create without words. It is more about an emotional and associational line rather than having a precisely set script. We try to cross boundaries,“ said Jana Šturdíková, one of the theatre members.
The Non.Garde Theatre was founded three years ago by graduates of the Academy of Performing Arts (VŠMU). It is based in the Central European House of Photography. It produces two to three productions annually, several open performances, as well as a program for children.
Zuzana Sotáková
Pravda, June 16, 2010
(adapted from: https://www.pravda.sk/spravy/kultura/clanok/27552-divadlo-nongarde-experimentuje-s-emociami)