In order to commemorate the approaching 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, members of the non-profit organisation Opona (The Curtain) has organised a series of events, one of which is opening on Thursday, 23 April, at Prague’s náměstí Republiky. The Totalitarian Circus will include an open-air exhibition featuring some of the key events of the communist Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary and East Germany, and the Totality Simulator, providing a 90-minute experience of what life was like behind the Iron Curtain. The event prepared in cooperation with historians and artists will provide an interesting insight into the things we should not forget. Read January’s Do It for more information.
If riding a bike in Prague is what you have always wanted to do but were afraid to try, you can do it on Thursday with a group of bikers. The spring bike ride organised by a civic group AutoMat starts at 6pm on Jiřího z Poděbrad and ends on Letná in front of Bio Oko movie theatre, where a documentary focusing on AutoMat activites will be shown.
If biking is not your cup of tea, you can try your hand at marble shooting. The National Museum up on Wenceslas Square is organising a marble tournament on Saturday and Sunday as part of the Republika exhibition. The Kuličkiáda starts both days at 10am and runs through 4pm in the exhibition section called Life in the Countryside, where a special pit has been created for the event. You have time until Friday noon to sign up for the contest. The participation will be your free ticket to the exhibition, which captures the history of Czechoslovakia before the World War II.
Another event scheduled for this weekend is a historical open-air market at Prague’s Krupkovo náměstí presenting a variety of traditional arts and crafts, which you can see and try, taste or buy. If you want to see how to make bread, sheep-wool rugs the old-fashioned way, taste honey wine and listen to backpipers and banjo bands, come to Krupkovo náměstí this weekend (by bus number 131 from Hradčanská). If Czech glass is your passion, visit the Mánes exhibition hall on Vltava 23-27 April for some of the most renowned Bohemian Art Nouveau glass objects produced by the Johann Lötz Witwe glassworks in Klášterský mlýn na Šumavě.
The 4th international art, science and technology festival runs through Sunday with more than 80 artists from over 20 countries presenting and discussing current developments in what is called new media art. If you want to know more about high-speed urbanisation and massive-scale social networking, visit ENTER at one of its Prague venues: the International Centre for Arts and New Technologies (CIANT), Meetfactory in Smíchov and DOX in Holešovice.
Still hoping to find a better thing to do? You will not get bored with dancing! At least that’s what the organisers of the Czech Dance Platform, a contemporary dance annual show, promise on their site. This year’s edition will see young dancers from the Czech Republic and Europe performing at Prague’s theatres Ponec, Archa, La Fabrica and Duncan Centre from 24 through 29 April. On Saturday, you can see a 50-minute fight between a man and a woman called Sudden Showers of Silence inspired by Homer’s Illiad poem and performed by Slovak-Greek duo RootlessRoot Company, Archa, 8pm.
On Sunday, Czech dance group Nanohach together with British ensemble DV8 Physical Theatre of Nigel Charnock will present its well acclaimed show Miluj mě (Love me), Ponec, 8pm. Or you can go see Jiří Bartovanec’ show When my mind is rocking, I know it’s 7, which he created together with Sasha Waltz & Guests. Izrael, which is said to be the hub of modern dance, is also presented at the festival, with Ohad Naharin’s B/olero performed by the 420PEOPLE dance group on Monday, Ponec. A discussion on Czech contemporary dance and free screening of The Cost of Living, a film created by DV8 Physical Theatre, will close the event on Wednesday.
Starting next Tuesday, you can taste delicacies from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and other South American countries as part of the Latin American Gastronomic Festival held at the President Hotel from 28 April through 6 May. The hotel’s Vltava restaurant will be open for the event daily from 6:30pm until 11:30pm, with the menu highlighting every day a different national cuisine. Only the Mexican food on Sunday will be available earlier from 12am until 3pm.
To warm up for your Latin American culinary experience, get tickets for today’s show of Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club at Prague’s Congress Centre. The 11-piece band from Havana will play traditional Cuban music, which in the 1940s’ was especially popular at Havana’s legendary Buena Vista Social Club. What Buena Vista may be for Cuba, Fanfare Ciocarlia may be for Romania. This popular Roma brass band will play horns and clarinets at Palác Akropolis on Thursday, 23 April, at 7pm.
The European Film Festival is closing in Prague on Thursday, while new movies are entering the local theatres. The Reader by Stephen Daldry is a movie many recommend seeing also for “outstanding acting” by Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes and David Kross. The film tells the story of Michael Berg, a German lawyer who as a teenager in the late 1950s had an affair with an older woman, Hanna Schmitz. Later he re-encounters his former lover as she defends herself in a war-crime trial and asks himself whether to reveal an information that could save Hanna from prison. Bernhard Schlink wrote about his novel, on which the film is based, “The Reader is not a story about redemption or forgiveness. It is about how my generation of Germans came to terms with what the generation before us had done.”
Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York shows a theatre director struggling with his work and the women in his life as he attempts to create a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse as part of his new play. Also you may want to go see Cooking History, a documentary film exploring 20th century war conflicts through kitchen.
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