Festivals others

Yesterday, the first season of the Prague Wine Week started. Wine lovers get a good insight into vinotheques, bars and restaurants, as during the whole week (until 18th January) Prague citizens can wine-taste at various places, make the best of discount or just try suitable combinations of chosen dishes and wines.

In Prague, demand for quality wines rises. Number of quality enterprises come into existence, “…and so the festival came into being to provide wine lovers with possibility of better orientation in the ever increasing supply.”

Forty eight Prague enterprises joined, offering invitations, sales and actions. Some events from the programme are free, other paid. Somewhere it is ok to just come to the company, somewhere it is necessary to reserve one’s place.

At the occasion of Prague Wine Week taking place the bilingual, Czech-English wine guide in Prague was published; it should become the handbook for not only Prague citizens, but for visitors of the metropolis as well. More info at here

Czech Christmas celebrations are concentrated to one evening; the Christmas Eve, forgot the American style when you get the gifts on 25th in the morning.

In the Czech Republic (and Slovakia) the day goes like this: If there is snow outside, one should take something out and start sledging the hills. Than home, and turn the TV on. To watch the fairy-tales! But they must be Czech fairy-tales, as they are among the least violent of prolly all the fairy-tales in the world. All who can must join, and enjoy them.

When the evening comes, there is the time for the ceremonial dinner. It should be a carp, or any other fish with potato salad, served with good beer, or vine. Lite up the candles and talk.

The main phase starts after dinner: There are gifts under the tree! Time to unwrap it, slowly and nicely, and finally marvel at all the things your closest ones gave you, and to enjoy the others unwrapping those you gave to them.

When it is all over, you can finally heave a sigh of relief, and go to sleep, with the nice perspective this circus won’t be back until the next year.

This year of 2008 brings traditional festivities, which you can enjoy while at Prague Old Town Square.

29th November – 10:00 – The international festival of advent music
18:00-18:15 – Lighting up the Christmas tree

5th December – 13:00 – 16:30 – Prague Advent Choral Meeting.
17:00 – 19:00 – St. Nicholas (Mikulas) show

9th December – Czech Christmas with Baby Jesus (Jezisek) the box for child letters to him is going to installed.

24th December – 21:00 – 22:00 – Czech Christmas Mass

31st December – 15:00 – 18:00 – Baby New Years Eve
18:30 – 00:05 New Years Eve celebration

1st January 2009 – 14:00 – 15:00 – Arias from Czech Operas carried out by the chorale and soloists or the National Theatre and the State opera

If you head to Prague, this little list should give the opportunity to get in some Christmas atmosphere. The best thing is those events are entry-free .

The almost one hundred year old spruce, 22 metres tall, arrived to Prague to become the Christmas pride of the Old Town Square. The company arrived with the tree about one hour after the midnight, the installation itself took two hours, so it was erected at three in the morning, exactly month before the Christmas Eve.

“Thanks to cooperation with police, the transport of the colossus run without complications. The worst part was getting the tree from the forest, as there was very heavy snowing during the weekend, and we had to use some heavy technique.” said the speaker form the shielding company

Ceremonial lighting of the tree is prepared on the Saturday, 6 pm. The Prague mayor Pavel Bem traditionally promised to show up on the ceremony, which will also open the Christmas markets.

On Thursday 28th October, on 90th anniversary of independent Czechoslovakia foundation, must everything be perfect. There will be 1 692 participants and almost 200 pieces of military hardware on the 2 hour parade. The organizers promise that it will be different from that pompous marches, as we remember them form the communist age. It is also going to be the first real military parade after the Velvet Revolution. There was one in 2003, but it was a parade in historical uniforms.

The parade is going to take place in Prague, Everopska street, the start is planned on 1 pm. In the front of the units is going to go 16 originals of historical standards from the First and Second WW, and which once belonged to Czechoslovak Units in the Great Britain, USSR and in Africa. Those pieces of fabric probably survived communism by a miracle.

The programme starts by a flyover of air forces. On the standard carriers connect the marching units of the army, police, firemen and police officers, in the complete length of 850. Their march will last for 11 minutes. The longest part of about 30 minutes belongs t the hardware, among which are tanks, helicopters and even snow scooter.

Robert Crumb comes to the Festival of writers 2009. He is one of the most open artists of the 20th century and what he started to create in 1960’s still has problems with people not accepting it. (With today tendencies for political correctness even maybe more ppl than in 60’s)

Crumb in 60’s came with a genial idea how to get tabooed themes to public – because everything coming out of official distribution was auto-censored, they founded their own distribution net including shops. Crumb himself made the cult comics Zap, and put the base theme in: do whatever you want.

The other guests of the writer’s festival Praha 2009 are the French poet of Syria origin writing under pseudonym Adonis and an important Danish poet Inger Christensen. They are both being discussed as possible gainers of the Nobel prize.

The literary festival takes place in Prague from 7 – 11 June. Discussion forum are going to focus especially on literature of the old worlds of Arabia and China with the leitmotiv :”the art of the story”

Karel IV. Arrives to Vysehrad – the Kralovodvorske slavnosti (princely court celebrations) end the season of New Town foundation festivities. There will be of course jugglers, conjurors, freelance actors and knights. All these are going to Vysehrad this Saturday.

Since 10 am in the morning, the visitor can watch medieval dances, fencing or troubadour performations. There will even be a medieval ale-house with traditional snacks. The whole action ends by a fireshow in 18:30.

Kralovodvorske slavnosti is one of the events, where we look at our long past from its bright side, and simply have fun. Those are special in that respect few other events have all the age groups having fun together. Families with kids, youth, adults, old fellows. Come have fun to Vysehrad! On 4th October 2008, 10 am – 6:30 pm

Music festival bringing various top musicians of different genres is going to appear this autumn again. This year is going to be the 13th volume.

The festival tearing down the walls between genres, connecting seemingly unconnectable musical worlds, this year comes with a new project called Spotlight, aimed to new stars in the music world. As the first from the hopeful talents to 25 years will be introduced the multi percussionist from Austria Martin Grubinger.

The whole festival, which unites the world of jazz, world music, classical and the so called old music, is going to be opened by the significant Russian sopranist Irina Lungu, who in 2003 debuted on the stages of La Scala. Strings of Autumn Information here.

Concerts selection
9/28 – Irina Lungu
10/11 – Chava Alberstein and guests
10/19 – Julia Fischer
10/21,22 – Lenak Dusilova
11/1 – Les Arts Florissants
11/19 Joel Frederiksen
11/8,10 – Martin Grubinger

You can find out that circus is not only about animals and clowns. The only thing you need to do is to arrive to Prague Letna festival Letni Letna, pay for a ticket varying from 60 (children performance) to 490 (the most expensive one for adults) and let yourself be amused. You won’t make a mistake by coming to one of the earlier performances with you children – the hours around lunch to early evening look like a meeting of kids of about 5 years old.

If we choose from the today’s programme, there is 11:00 Divadélko Romaneto – Pohádka z Krkonos (The Fairy-tale from Krkonose), 14:00 Václav Strasser – Duhové bubliny a jiné klauniády (Rainbow bubbles and other clowncraft), 15:30 Buchty a loutky – Zabak Valentyn (Frog Valentine), 19:00 Buchty a loutky – BARYK – Dog on the Road.

Evenings usually bring more artistic/serious/amazing/dangerous performances, today it is 21:00 Divadlo VOSTO5 – Špialová ruka (Dirple Hand). One of the most favorite group is Decalanges, a Czech-French team in the performance called Posedlost (Obsession) – a combination of theatre, dance and aerial acrobacy.

Programme: here

The Prague festival Letni Letna feels like a poor relation on the first glance, with its hard wooden benches in a circus tent. None the less, it promises performances of great value, it has one of the most interesting theatre programme from the whole summer. Letni Letna starts today in Letna park and continues until 2nd September.

The festival specializes to the Circo nuevo, i.e. the kind of circuss who put drilled animals off the stage and returned with brilliant shows of acrobats, theatre poetry and magic. Letni Letna have already brought some top artists of the genre, last year it was Johann Le Guillerm with his Ici Cirque. Acrobats are accompanied by performances for children and street-theatre performances.

Letni Letna – 20th August – 2nd September 2008 @ Prague Letna

Graffiti is a form of street art, it appeared 30 years ago; later, stickers and stencils came to carry on the legacy, still – graffiti is the most wide-spread street art form.

Names Fest focuses on legality, graffiti is going to be presented as a form of creative art, not from the side of an adrenaline sport. A few legally rented walls are waiting to introduce Czech and foreign authors and their art.

There are going to be presentations of famous international art pieces and cult movies. The artists, who left an imprint on walls of many cities are welcomed to introduce themselves.

Names Fest takes place since 26th August to 6th September in Trafacka gallery and around the famous movie theatre Aero. The festival culminates by the contest of the best artpiece, and continues by an exhibition in Trafacka until the end of October.

A bonus of this exhibition is an auction of graffiti created on canvas.

Famous open air electronic music festival Summer of Love draws nearer. What is it like? The twelfth year of the most popular one-day dance festival promises 6 stages, over 80 performers, world stars and famous headliners, as well as new talented personalities.

The main stage offers a wide variety of styles, at least three world headliners, supported by a number of many other quality names. The first public name from the main stage is the legendary tryo Stereo MCs, fresh Berlin sound M.A.N.D.Y. or Apparata or the morning set with a sunrise and DJ Ed Rush.

After a great success of the trance stage, the focus of organizers lies heavily on it; the progressive-trance stage is called United Music DJ stage and it is managed together with United Music. The stage is specially equipped with visuals and lights.

Inseparable, Drum’n‘bass stage is be present under the name Take Control stage, with strong sound and various other improvements. Again, it was designed with help of Sukim and IM Cyber, two of the top Czech DnB scene. The headliners aare Teebee & Calyx in back2back set.

Techno stage introduces many actual techno names, the organizers stick o the tradition and so there is still the favoured hardstyle as well.

16.08.2008 The Pardubice Racecourse, Czech Republic
tickets: TICKETPRO – www.ticketpro.cz – www.summeroflove.cz – SUMMER OF LOVE 2008 ‘Closer To Your Heart’ – Open air electronic music festival.

The three day festival with masks, jugglers, dancers, musicians, allegorical stuff and many more, mostly theatre and circus nuevo. They go every day from 10:00 to 21:00. Fiveteen companies from the Czech Republic, Germany, USA, South Africa, Island, Austria and Australia. All the performances are done for free. This is the only street performance festival in the Czech Republic, so if you like this kind of things, don’t miss it.

For Example from Germany arrived jugglers in musketeers costumes, dancing robots Metroccolis and a cabinet of twisted mirrors Fatalia. Claun Conc from South Africa is said to have the power of making all the audiences laugh.

For the seventh year, Teatrotoc will bring street theater to Prague. This year, the festival will take place from 16.7. to 18.7. 2008 in the center of Prague on Kampa Island.

Since the right hemisphere is normally associated with creativity, then any activity which helps to awaken this suppressed hemisphere is certainly welcome. Enter juggling. Who could argue juggling does not use both sides of the brain? Both hands are used in juggling, aren’t they?

Jugglers learn in a narrow focus situation. Recall how most people learn to read. First, they learn to recognize the letters (the ball or pin). Then they learn to recognize the word (the juggling pattern). However, once this basic juggling “pattern” (the word) has been learned, then the focus can shift to a higher level still (the words become a sentence). An example of this would be a juggler on a rola-bola.

If an accomplished juggler now wants to learn a new trick, once again the focus must become narrow, the ball or pin must capture the attention (enter left-brain activity). Like a beginning new juggler, he or she must focus on throwing a double flip with the right hand before the left hand can throw a pin behind the back.

It appears juggling, like life itself, is a paradox. To catch we must not reach. To see the pattern we must not look at its parts. To learn we must unlearn.

If you like juggling and street art, there are some good news for you. From 24th to 27th of July there is going to be 8th year of Czech Juggling Convention and Street Festival in Prague. It is, as organizers states, a big celebration of juggling, acrobatic, new circus and other street art forms. Not only Czech people will be performers, the event is international. It consists not of performances on streets of Prague, some workshops, but also evening programs, lectures and gala shows. Read on

LOCATION/PLACE:
· TJ Sokol Zizkov – Konevova 19, Prague 3, Czech republic
· Park on the Vitkov hill in the centre of the city

From 16 to 18 July in the street Na Kampe by the Famous Charles Bridge is possible to something you would expect in Paris or Barcelona – a street art festival. Performers are traditionally street actors, puppet actors, puppeteers, mimes, jugglers and stilt walkers, who turn the area of Kampa into big theatre stage.

This year it will be the VII year of Teatrotoc festival, bringing 70 performances from 15 Czech and international groups from the Czech Republic, Germany, USA, South Africa, Island and Austria. No need to say All the performances are free entry. Prague citizens and visitors have the unique chance to get entertained by the very old traditional way, which we tend to forgot about in our uber-urbanized society.

Event: Teatrotoc festival
Date: 16 – 18 July
Place: Na kampe street and Wenceslas square

This years contest is, as usual, linked to the World Cup skateboarding 2008. Mystic Sk8 Cup traditionally belong to the most favorite holiday action in Prague.

Since Friday 4th to Sunday 6th July, the world best riders will compete in three disciplines – streetstyle, vert and bowl for the main prize of 50 000 $. The bowl discipline is new here, and very attractive, as the park was designed by legendary characters of Skateboarding Dave Duncan a Brian Patch.

Every year, about 10.000 will come to form the audience, the atmosphere is unique also because the audience knows what is going on the in the skate world. And also because the world comes to them – over 200 professional riders from 25 countries, including the world top from the USA Brazil, Australia a Europa.

There will be also workshops, music will be played by Vladimir 518, Sunshine, Apple Juice, Chilla Killers, Czeck Beatbox Allstars, DJs Loutka, Robot, Trafik, Kuba Soulcheck and others.

Event: Mystic Sk8 Cup in Prague
Venue: Stvanice Island
When: Friday 4th to Sunday 6th July
Tickets: 290/day, 590/3days at Ticketpro

Prague is again hosting this typical Czech event, connected to testing thirty kinds of Czech Beer. Quality of the golden drink is going to be traditionally guaranteed by supervisors of breweries present. The areal will once again host up to 10t visitors, who will walk there with glasses of bear, tasting labels they have never even seen.

A part of the festival will be also musical performances of various groups and singers. The artists will be at small stages, as well as on the main stage, which will provide well-known Czech musicians everyday 18 – 20. For example today there will be Bara Basikova, on Wednesday there will be Laura a jeji tygri.

The festival is very good for families, as there are Matejska pout rides nearby. Also, the last day of the festival, 1st June, will be devoted to children. The festival takes place 26th May – 1st June 2008. It is on Prague Vystaviste, alias Prague Exhibition Ground.

The Death with the Devil, five metres tall, will walk the streets of Prague Jizni Mesto this Friday and Saturday. The giant puppet parade, called Echt Street Puppets will be a part of the Street for Art festival, which live 16th and 17th May whole buildings, areas and athmosphere of the biggest neighbourhood in the Republic.

What will be presented? “Stret art, from parades through screening movies on wall of houses to illegal grafitti.” The organizer Jiri Sulzenko stated. The festival will have theatre performances and various workshops of things like juggling or beatbox.

Prague Street Art Festival NOT in the centre: Jizni Mesto, 16th May – 17th May

United Islands of Prague is the city festival, gaining popularity every year, becoming an important cultural event of the Metropolis. During those three days, you have the unique chance to celebrate with us – to welcome summer in, celebrate the end of the schooolyear, and especially paricipy at the music feast in the historical centre of Prague.

The festival tradidionally takes place on the islands, Janackovo Nabrezi and in various clubs of Prague. The Ceremonial initation and the afterparty takes place on Smichov and in the centre of contemporary art, Meet Factory. Most of the festival will, of course, take place on Prague islands. The event is: Entry Free.

To participate have promised Spanish project La Shica with the singress and rapper Elsa Rovayo, the rising star of the world music. Jazz stage at Kampa will host No Jazz from France. Also, there will be the Hungarian Quimby, which sells out the biggest clubs with their alternative rock music. Of course, the Blues magicians J.J. Band cannot miss this event.

United Islands of Prague 19th – 21st June 2008

The Marionette Festival presents puppet theatres from tents of countries. The 20th annual year of the festival is organized under the lead and patronage of the city of Prague and the city part of Prague 1. The International Institute of Marionette of Art Mgr. Todor Ristic, President of Festival

Among more than three tens of puppet companies, there will be puppeteers from Thailand, China, the Netherlands, Belgium, Brazil and Iran. Many of their representative institutions have provided patronage for the project.

The performances will be initiated in the Mestska Knihovna (City Library) by a puppet show from Bangkok, also supplemented by screenings of puppet films (from the Czech Republic it will be Jiri Trnka fairy-tales.

The performances (up to seven a day) will be taking place in Kinsky Palace on the Old Town Square, where the institute resides, and also in Divadelko Karlova 44.

Shorter pieces will be possible to see directly on the Old Town Square.