Commander

Commander

Farma v jeskyni is a unique theater studio, whose troupe led by Slovak director Viliam Dočolomanský acts as a resident troupe of the Center for Contemporary Art DOX in Prague's Holešovice. The creation of theater is mainly focused on research and development of human expression and uses a combination of genres of physical, dance, musical theater or film. The ensemble represented the Czech Republic at prestigious festivals on three continents and in more than sixty world cities. He won several important international awards, the most valuable of which is probably the European Award for New Theater Reality for the director Dočolomanský, who is the only Czech holder of this award. The farm in the cave is celebrating 20 years since its inception this year with the premiere of the new theater project Commander.

The original inspiration for the show Commander was a disturbing media report that the Estonian police had arrested a 13-year-old boy who was the leader of the international neo-Nazi group (FKD) Flame War Division on the Internet and appeared on social networks under the profile Commander. This extremist even shared instructions for making a bomb and called for a terrorist attack on London. However, the production is not about the story of this particular boy. Although the dialogues are taken directly from the communication of the aforementioned radical online group, the project, divided into two parts - a movement theater with adult dancers and an audiovisual projection with child actors - talks more generally about the topics: immature behavior of society versus online radicalization of children. After all, a similar story can currently take place anywhere else in the world. This is also why the creation of the production was first preceded by a detailed research of the behavior of teenagers on the Internet, which the ensemble carried out. Finally, sociological research is the basic principle of creation for the Farm in the Cave studio, which has also been applied in other productions in the past. This is also why the preparation of a show can sometimes take several years. Live music is a very important part of the stage performance, which determines the dynamics of the performance, especially in the first part. The unconventional composition of instruments, including the use of beatboxing, so typical for hip-hop music, controls the movement of individual performers on stage. While the theatrical part, in a very professional movement version, is only loosely inspired by online discussions, the dialogues of the child protagonists in the audiovisual part are fragments taken literally from children's communication on the Internet. They reveal to us the world of children in positions in which we do not know it at all and in which we probably cannot even imagine it. They talk to each other openly about death, sex and hatred with such a natural balance in their voices that it is shocking to the viewer. During the performance, the viewer's head is constantly surrounded by questions: Is this the world we live in? Is it really a reality that we have created or is it just a fiction created by the creators? Despite the fact that the viewer does not have a chance to rest even for a moment during the performance, he leaves the story struck in the most sensitive part of his being. After all, it concerns our children, our vulnerability and the future at the same time. And the Commander show mercilessly cuts straight to the living. It does not try to spare the viewer or distort reality, as we often witness in other theater productions. The work does not fit and does not embellish anything. And by doing so, he does a good service not only to the theater itself, but to the whole society. The Commander production is definitely worth seeing.

Vladimír Dubeň

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