About the project:
As over-the-top acrobatic show as a massaged CV. Losers Cirque Company are bringing the new show – The Competition – and only the audience decides the winner.
“We’ll call you back!” A sentence everyone has heard at least once. Today you’re going to hear it again. They will call you back indeed – if you become the chosen one of the applicants armed with fine-tuned CVs who are just getting ready to fight for… for what? Does it even matter? The winner-to-be now has to hide their true self, their principles, and their self-respect to prove they’re the very best. Or at least fake it until they make it and overcome the rest. Succeeding in the game with no clear rules is not going to be easy. Who is going to show the judges the most delightful cocktail of talent, pretence, and ambition?
Artistic intention:
In The Competition show, we observe human competitiveness, obsession with victory and both inward and physical borders people are willing to cross just to succeed. We seek answers to such questions as what price is success worth and if the victory is something to be jealous of.
In daily life, we more and more often find ourselves in situations where we have to prove our quality, qualification, or strength. With a wide-spreading trend of changing job not once, but a couple of times in a lifetime we more and more often wait in front of the desired door with many other people wishing to get in together with us. In these times when many people are forced to change their job due to the covid pandemic, we find this topic yet even more pressing.
The show revolves around an open competition for an undefined job. That means – no one knows what they’re trying to achieve and what are requirements for the dream applicant. Therefore they put all their effort in to show all their talents, engage people’s attention and be the very best. From the beginning, when their character reduces only to a reference number they’re assigned, they become rivals. Common experience transforms their relationships though.
An important aspect of completing the atmosphere of uncertainty and nervosity is the character of the judge. He, being the puppet master, abuses his post and enjoys demonstrating his supremacy over the applicants. He provokes them to push their physical, psychical, and moral borders. His attitude wakes the dark sides of applicants’ personalities. In an environment with no clear rules, the applicants start doubting they ever achieve something with fair play.
The main means of expression are acrobatics, dance, and live music, to a lesser extent drama, singing, and juggling. A duck tape represents an important visual aspect, used to define the space for the acrobat to move in, or as a tool to paralyze or to show the right way.
The audition itself also becomes a part of The Competition. Part of them in direct interactions when they have to fulfill various tasks and all of them as the judges who are to decide the final winner.
Direction: Petr Horníček
Scenario: Matěj Randár, Petr Horníček
Dramaturgy: Matěj Randár
Choreography: Tomáš Pražák
Music: Kirill Yakovlev
Costumes: Lucie Červíková
Scene: Petr Horníček
Light design: Michael Bláha
Sound: Karel Mařík
Production: United Arts
Performs:
Karolína Křížková
Sára Stoulilová
Ester Josefína Vandasová
Kirill Yakovlev
Jiří Bělka
Petr Dlugoš
Adam Rameš
Lukáš Borik
Petr Dvořák
Voice: Josefina Horníčková
Author: Silvie Marková
