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All Events Dance in the Gallery: Labyrinth | A Choreographic-Sculptural Triptych

Dance in the Gallery: Labyrinth

A Choreographic-Sculptural Triptych

Troja Château | GHMP
Tue 28 Jul | Tue 11 Aug | Tue 25 Aug | Fri 19 Sep | Mon 28 Sep

This year, Dance in the Gallery unfolds in the labyrinth of Troja. Hana Polanská, Viktor Černický and Kristián Mensa now enter a creative process with sculptors and the curatorial team of the Prague City Gallery (GHMP). Together they create a new performative work on the border of dance and visual art, made specifically for the baroque garden of the Troja Château.

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In its labyrinth, the individual creative approaches meet, pass one another and come together again, always transforming. This year’s Dance in the Gallery is created in co-production with the Prague City Gallery, in connection with the exhibition project Labyrinth at the Troja Château.

On summer Tuesdays, as part of the Riviéra programme, the individual parts are presented, bringing new sculptural installations to life in the garden. In the autumn they come together in a joint presentation as a single performative-visual whole.

Follow the Creative Process

  • Tue 28 Jul – Kristián Mensa & Stanislav Zábrodský, Ungrounded
  • Tue 11 Aug – Hana Polanská & Jakub Choma, Circle With Many Centers
  • Tuhe 25 Aug –Viktor Černický & Tomáš Roubal, Claude

Premieres

  • Fri 19 Sep – Hana Polanská & Kristián Mensa (at the Art Book Fair; a moderated discussion)
  • Mon 28 Sep – Joint premiere (with a workshop by Viktor Černický)

Choreographic Team

Hana Polanská (CZ)

Viktor Černický (SK/CZ)

Kristián Mensa (CZ)

Dance in the Gallery 2012–2025 | Photo: Dragan Dragin, Julie Stehnová

Alice Chauchat: Museography Choreography, Hana Polanská, Nhung Dang (foto Dragan Dragin)

Co-production Partner and Further Support

The project is created in co-production with the Prague City Gallery in partnership with Radio Wave. It is financially supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, the City of Prague and State Cultural Fund.

Latest Editions of Dance in the Gallery

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Dance in the Gallery: Horizons of Interdisciplinarity

This year's choreographic-visual collaboration is part of SE.S.TA's long-term cycle, which since 2012 has connected contemporary dance and visual art in the gallery context and in public space. We aim to develop interdisciplinary collaboration between choreographers and visual artists and to deepen the sharing of know-how across the individual art forms.

Collaboration across galleries and museums

The pilot Dance in the Gallery project began in 2012 in collaboration with the National Gallery Prague and the Wannieck Gallery in Brno. In 2016, the Prague City Gallery and the Museum of New Generation in Žďár nad Sázavou joined.

With GHMP at the Prague Quadrennial

During the Prague Quadrennial 2019, SE.S.TA and GHMP invited poets and choreographers to critically engage with the legacy of Karel Hynek Mácha. The performances took place in public space near Myslbek's statue on Petřín and interacted with the audience and passers-by present.

On the 19th-century collections at the National Gallery

Cultural stereotypes – this time gender stereotypes – were also the main theme of the 2020/2021 edition led by American choreographer Sue Schroeder, who, together with the Core Dance company and young Czech choreographers, reflected on the National Gallery's 19th-century collection, with the creative process taking place online during the pandemic.

Gallery Without Borders during Covid

A new impulse for the project in 2020 and 2021 came from NGP director Alicja Knast and the Gallery Without Borders project, which strongly involved curators in the discussion. The joint debate mapped the points of contact between choreographic and curatorial approaches, especially in working with space and time. The elements of visual art – dynamics, line, shape, colour, value, form, texture, space and perspective – also form the pillars of choreographic work. At the same time, choreography emphasises the temporal, dynamic and movement-based aspects of perceiving a work of art. It is precisely on this debate that we now want to build.

3D printing and contemporary dance with UPM

The 2022 edition was inspired by an installation of concrete barriers innovatively created using 3D printing by the ICE company from Žďár nad Sázavou, located in the hall of the Museum of Decorative Arts. This collaboration shows that the Dance in the Gallery project visionarily seeks to explore both near and distant horizons of interdisciplinarity.

Museography Choreography

In 2023, the internationally acclaimed choreographer Alice Chauchat (FR/DE), together with dancer Hana Polanská and in collaboration with curator Michal Novotný, launched research into the choreography of relationships in the National Gallery Prague exhibition 1939–2021: The End of the Black-and-White Era. In the first (research) phase, they explore the inner dynamics of this exhibition's installation and possible reflections of these principles in choreographic structures. Next year, the team will present the results of this process as a work of contemporary dance.