Shift, motion, a change in the way of thinking, an object, a body. We look at history from various points of view. We are looked at. As subjects. As objects.
We talk about the experiences of dozens of women within the past hundred years. Their thoughts, experiences, lives were recorded for the project Women's Memory as part of oral history. They were recorded on tape and archived. We go through lives according to a key we have chosen, having a need to bear subjective witness to the women's status as related to work. We gratefully base our piece on tedious work done by oral historian/herstorian Pavla Frýdlová. We map women's working lives from the beginning of independent Czechoslovakia in 1918 until today. What connects, emancipates, individualises, liberates, ties, disturbs, stultifies and relativises us? We look for the reflection of the present in the past. Can we find parallels with specific Czech experiences or with the experiences of other post-communist countries? We look back to see how much our of practice is unique.
We pursue the ordinariness of woman's destiny. We listen to everydayness, heroic commonness, which we must survive each day, in which a woman is not a symbol of beauty and luxury, but of admiration.
The plurality of common and ordinary voices is represented by three subjects/objects locked in huge moving entities, accompanied, through loudspeakers, by dozens of petty stories – simple yet strong – about the possibilities, necessities, and opportunities of woman's work.
This dance and acoustic installation for three dancers is placed in contrast with the perfection of art objects in gallery collections, exhibited to show off.
Supported by: Hlavní město Praha, Ministerstvo kultury ČR, Institut umění - Divadlení ústav
Premiere: 26. 5. 2018
