27th Czech Dance Platform•••
27. – 30.9. 2021

The Czech Dance Platform is held regularly every year in the spring. Last year’s 26th Czech Dance Platform took place only online in November 2020, so at the 27th annual festival we presented live works selected for both 2020 and 2021, again postponed from spring to autumn: 27 – 30 September 2021.



The Platform’s extremely busy program in 2021 was very varied. Productions by already established ensembles or artists on the Czech scene were presented, as well as the productions by the young generation. The festival was personally attended by 70 accredited guests, mainly from abroad, who often took the opportunity of the first trip beyond the borders of their home countries. In the current difficult time, this number testifies to the interest in the contemporary Czech dance and movement theatre scene and its undeniable qualities, as well as the professional quality of the Tanec Praha organization in maintaining contacts and connections with the international community of contemporary dance and movement theatre.

The works are selected by the Dramaturgical Council composed of experts in the field. In 2020 and 2021, the Dramaturgical Council was composed of: Lucia Kašiarová, Jitka Pavlišová, Pierre Nadaud, Lucie Hayashi (only in 2020), Petra Dotlačilová (only in 2021), Nina Vangeli as a senior member, and Yvona Kreuzmannová and Markéta Perroud sharing one vote.

For 2020 and 2021, we also approached art students to collaborate on the selection of productions and we discussed the submitted productions with them. The young critics had the opportunity to watch the submitted works partially live (2020) or on video (2021) and to vote on works that they believe should not be missing from the Platform.

In 2020, they selected three works: Jana Stárková, Lukas Blaha, Ondřej Menoušek: Lavabo, POCKETART/Sabina Bočková, Johana Pocková: The Lion’s Den and Cécile Da Costa: Roselyne, in agreement with the works selected by the Dramaturgical Council. In 2021, they selected four works, only three of which were in agreement with the Dramaturgical Council: POCKETART / Sabina Bočková, Johana Pocková, Inga Zotova Mikshina: Treatment of Remembering, Divadlo Continuo: Hic Sunt Dracones, T.I.T.S: Tumour: A Carcinogenic Romance. Dočasná Company z.s. with the work Effugio volume 2 was selected only by the young critics as their priority and was therefore also included in the Platform program.

This format of collaboration with young critics is part of the European project Be SpectACTive!, which offers new ways of active audience participation.  

In 2021, we expanded the accompanying program to include systematic collaboration with young critics led by journalists from Springback Magazine (Sanjoy Roy and Oonagh Duckworth) and Czech critic Nina Vangeli, who in their work deal with the reflection of dance and movement works. We organized a review-writing workshop for those interested from the Czech Republic and Slovakia, who discussed individual works with mentors during the festival and wrote short reviews about them, which were subsequently translated and placed on the Platform’s website.

In 2021 the festival took place in eight Prague theatre and non-theatre venues (PONEC – the dance venue, Studio ALTA, Venuše ve Švehlovce, Divadlo X10, SWIM, La Fabrika, DOX+, Palác Akropolis), where we presented 14 productions by 12 ensembles or individual artists in three very full days. 

Accredited guests and artists could then meet during the morning discussion format Discussions & Brunch – The Art of Dialogue, during which the works presented the previous day were discussed. There were three discussions in total: on 28 September in DOX+, on 29 September in Studio ALTA and on 30 September in PONEC. 

This year again there was an informal meeting with project creators called Meet the Artists.

The culmination of the 27th Czech Dance Platform was the award ceremony, which was decided by a nine-member International Jury, which saw all the selected works of the Platform.