With temperatures reaching over 20C last week, it is hard to accept that now we have to put on winter jackets and hats when going out. Below you may find events that will entertain you while getting used to it.
The 12th Guitar Across Styles festival will showcase the diverse genres played acoustically. This year’s highlights are the Italian virtuoso Beppe Gambetta, Czech composer and pedagogue Jiří Jirmal, and Vicki Genfan, an American singer and guitarist known for her fingerpicking technique. She will perform together with the phenomenal electric guitar player Jennifer Batten. The festival will take place across the country at venues including Prague’s Dejvické theatre and Palác Akropolis from 18 October through 28 November. The opening show at Dejvické divadlo, featuring the Slovak guitarist Ĺuboš Beňa and the Czech singer and mouth harpist Matěj Ptaszek, will revive the sounds of Mississippi Delta blues on 18 October.
Not only great guitarists but also drummers are gathering in Prague these days to show their skills. Three drummers from Japan will join four drummers from the Czech Republic in a multi-genre music project staged by Divadlo Archa on 20 October.
For the first time in his long career, Roy Ayers who is known as the godfather of jazz-funk, R&B and innovator of the acid jazz movements, vibraphonist and vocalist, will play in Prague. The show at Palác Akropolis takes place on 15 October.
Return to Akropolis on 20 October for a quick history lesson about the Czech nation. The theatre group Nablízko will introduce the most important moments, from the country’s origin to the Velvet Revolution through puppetry, clownery, black-light theatre and dance performances. English is the main language of this provocative comedy.
You don’t have to be a bird to take part in the Conference of the Birds which opens on Friday, 16 October. What you need is an interest in the dance cultures of central Asia, the Middle East and north African countries, mysticism and poetry. Organised by the Open Field multicultural center, the 10-day event will feature art workshops, music and dance performances at various venues in Prague. Visit the festival website for full programme and more information.
The festival of Czech and Slovak contemporary dance runs from 15 to 19 October at Studio ALT@ and Divadlo Archa with Les SlovaKs Dance Collective as a headliner. The 19 October performance Journey Home combines physical and spontaneous dance with Slovak folk traditions, humor and live music. At Archa from 8pm.
Exceptional designs, masks, costumes, moving objects and other props that have been used in theatre performances over the last 15 years are on view at the National Technical Library in Dejvice. Among the 11 featured productions are Beauty and the Beast by the Forman Brothers Theatre, Petr Lébl’s Racek, and Pitínský’s Sister Anxiety, which received the Alfred Radok Award for best stage design in 1995. Also remarkable is the exhibition venue: the recently erected library of the Czech Technical University, which is touted as one of the country’s greenest buildings. The Prolomit prostor exhibit will run through 14 November.
An exhibition of large-scale graffiti paintings from the leading Czech graffiti artists has opened at The Chemistry Gallery, a space for presentation of artwork of young contemporary artists. The NA.PRO.TI.TO.MU exhibit will run through 30 October.
In case you have not seen David Černý’s Entropa at the DOX galllery in Holešovice you should go now and check out the works of another 40 contemporary Czech artists from the field of architecture, design and art, each of whom expressed their personal take on the notion of Europe and the European community. The exhibition My Europe is on display until 18 November. The gallery also presents a video installation comparing today’s methods of political propaganda and commercial advertising with those used under communism. Tomorrow Starts Yesterday is on display till 23 November.
Thousands and thousands of photographs capturing the first 15 years of the First Republic will be on display at the newly renovated Vítkov Monument in Žižkov as of 28 October. Included will be lesser-known pieces depicting T.G. M. during official and private events. The exhibit will be on until 6 July, 2010 and free of charge for all of November.
