Ján Mančuška - Hra pozpátku

The Backwards Play by conceptual artist Ján Mančuška is a performance that works simultaneously with two directions of action. A narrator placed in the audience tells a story in linear form emanating from the author’s text. Five dancers on the stage act out the same story, but in the opposite sequence, i.e., backwards. All action on the stage is played out backwards, movements, gestures, the unreeling of action. Both directions of the story, in which the protagonist, led by the longing to correct his own mistakes returns into the past, thanks to their mirror-like structure intersect at key points and thus appears simultaneous. Work with language, in which the author looks back to his older textual installations, is here connected with action on the stage performed by five dancers. The aspect of the dance is represented by perfectly executed backwards movements.

Director: Ján Mančuška
Featuring: Petra Hauerová, Veronika Kacianová, Lotte Nouwkens, Miroslav Kochánek, Ondřej Lipovský, Roman Zach

World premiere:
Takkelloftet, Královské divadlo Kodaň as part of the U-Turn, Kvadrienále současného umění, 6.9.2008.