Czech avant-garde Theatre Elitistic Or Popular? Avantgarde styles Kubism Dadaism Surrealism Futurism Abstraction Supermantism…. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon 1907 Still Life With Chair Caning 1912 Jean Metzinger 1911 Étude pour le portrait de Guillaume Apollinaire, Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918) Collection of poems Alcools / Alcohols 1913 The first poem in the collection, Zone, has been called "the great poem of early Modernism (English version https://poets.org/poem/zone) At last you’re tired of this elderly world Shepherdess O Eiffel Tower this morning the bridges are bleating You’re fed up living with antiquity Even the automobiles are antiques Religion alone remains entirely new religion Remains as simple as an airport hangar In all Europe only you O Christianism are not old The most modern European Pope Pius X it’s you The windows watch and shame has sealed The confessionals against you this morning Flyers catalogs hoardings sing aloud Here’s poetry this morning and for prose you’re reading the tabloids Disposable paperbacks filled with crimes and police Biographies of great men a thousand various titles Calligram by Guillaume Apollinaire "Landscape" Weimar 1919-1933 The Triadisches Ballett was conceived in 1912 in Stuttgart in a cooperation between the dance troupe of Albert Burger and his wife Elsa Hötzel and Oskar Schlemmer. It premiered in the Stuttgart landestheater on 30 September 1922, with music composed by Paul Hindemit. It was also performed in 1923 during the Bauhaus Week at the Nationaltheater, Weimar, and at the Annual Exhibition of German Crafts, Dresden. Walter Gropius Project of Total theatre Some general features of Czech theatre avantgarde French (Apollinaire, Breton) and Russian (constructivism, Tairov, Meyerchold) inspirations Fascinated with modern pop-culture (film, cabaret, music-hall, jazz) Montage – Synthetism Director as key element Search for new acting lOsvobozené divadlo /Liberated Theatre was founded in 1925 as theatre section of Děvětsil group lFirst performance in April 1926 – Circus Dandin (based of Moliére) directed by Jiří Frejka Alfred Jarry: King Ubu Apollinaire: Les Mamelles de Tirésias Emil František Burian (1904-1959) Educated as musician / composer Founder of VOICEBAND group Jazz singer, theatre performer and finally Theatre director In 1933 establishes his theatre D 34 Divadlo D 34 / Theatre D 34 And theathergraph The old opera composers composed chromatic stage storms for the strings, lightning for the piccolo and thunder for tympani. (…) An obvious metaphor would emerge from this example if the orchestra was playing from the speakers in the auditorium and there were several projection screens placed on stage, showing enlarged rain drops falling towards the audience. The stage would be covered in silver mesh, reflected by the mirrors into the audience. The rhythm of the whole stage picture would have to correspond with the rhythm and the colour of the orchestra. The audience would probably run away in fear that they will get wet or stricken by lightning. 1936 – stage adaptation of Czech romantic poem Máj / The May by Karel Hynek Mácha 1938 – Goethe The Sorrows of Young Werther 1935 - Frank Wedeking Spring Awakening The WAR / Vojna 1935 – script based on folk poetry Vest Pocket Revue – 1927 (245 performances) Jan Werich (1905-1980) Jiří Voskovec (1905-1981) Voskovec and Werich in cinema Pudr a benzin / Make-up and Petrol 1931 Peníze nebo život / Life or Money 1932 Hej-Rup! 1934 Svět patří nám / The World belongs to Us 1937 Further reading Jarka M. Burian Leading Creators of Twentieth-Century Czech Theatre Bílke, Vojvodík, Wiendl (eds). A Glossary of Catchwords of the Czech Avant-Garde