Czech fairy tales
Who wouldn´t know some of Czech fairy tales? I think everybody knows some Czech fairy tales, because it is one of the things, which everybody (children or adults) enjoy at Christmas time or at Easter. It is wonderful, when all the family together watches some typical and very famous Czech fairy tale. The most famous fairy tales are for example: Tři oříšky pro popelku, Obušku, z pytle ven, S certy nejsou zerty, Z pekla štěstí 1 and 2 and many others. As I said everybody knows stories of that fairy tales, but I think, nobody knows important people who created them.
Trí oríšky pro popelku
Václav Vorlícek
He was born on 3rd June 1930 in Prague. He graduated in direction at Prague FAMU. He finished his studies with short played film Directiva. Then he acceded to the film studio Barrandov like an assistant of the direction and soon moved up to the place of helping director. At the beginning of the sixties he started free directional work. His debut was children´s detective Prípad Dubínek. The first Vorlícek´s films ranked to period average, but his talent and potential proved. And it is proved in many fairy tales for example: Dívka na košteti, Jak utopit doktora Mrácka, aned konec vodníků v Cechách, Jak se budí princezny, Princ a Vecernice, Arabela, Krecek v nocní košili and in many others.Obusku, z pytle ven!
Jaromír Pleskot
He was born on 11th February 1922. He is dramatic director. He isn´t so well known as Václav Vorlícek, also he has not filmed so many films. He graduated conservatoire. He directed films: Robinsonka, Clovek proti zkáze, Výlet pana Broucka do starých casů, but these films aren´t so known.S certy nejsou zerty
Hynek Bocan
He was born on 29th April 1938 in Prague. He also isn´t so well known as Václav Vorlícek. He directed for example: Cest a sláva, Na dvore je kůň šéfe, Parta hic, O zapometlivém cernoknezníkovi.Z pekla štestí 1 a 2
Zdenek Troška
He was born on 18th May 1953 in Hoštice u Volyně. He is a director and a scripter. He graduated FAMU and French Lyccé Carnot v Dijonu. He is the most controversial personality of the Czech film in modern world. He filmed also many comedies: Bota jménem Melichar, trilogy Slunce seno, trilogy Kamenák and fairy tale O princezne Jasnence a létajícím ševci. I think that fairy tales are very important in our life, because they show us, that the world can be better when we have some friends. And when we help them, they help us too. My friends love fairy tales and me too.Octopus in Prague
It’s green-white-yellow building in organic form with purple spots. It was chosen on international architectonic competition. The members of jury were (for example) Zaha Hadid -worldwide respected architect, Eva Juřicná-a successful Czech architect.
But lot of people don’t agree with decision of jury because they are more conservative; I think, that they are scared of new art. For example, the most famous and the greatest opponent of this building is the president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus. But as usual, Vaclav Havel, our previous president stands on the other side.
As I have already mentioned problems are... lots of problems...One of them is: the green library is very expensive. The construction is supposed to cost about 2 milliards Czech crowns (=11, 111, 111$) but finally the price is expected to increase to 3 milliards 200 thousands Czech crowns (=16, 677, 778$). And next problem follows, it’s maybe the biggest. The contest was announced poorly, because the organiser of competition taxed bad area for the projects. They offered the areas, which belong to The Capital city Prague. And the architect of the octopus, Jan Kaplicky, says that the building can’t be on the other place and Prague doesn’t want to sell their areas. Politicians want new round of competition. But it means money. For illustration, the contest cost almost 30 millions Czech crowns (=1, 764, 705$). It’s great confusion for me... People from the second biggest city of Czech Republic, from Brno, they have fallen in love with The Octopus. They support Kaplicky’s project and their idea is that the national library could be in their city. (if the Praguers don’t want it)
Other projects of library aren’t so much colourful, so much avant-garde, extravagant... They are nice, of course, but they are without juice. They affect to me... coldly, sadly, averagely, commonly (you can look at internet pages: you write “národní knihovna Praha” in Google searcher -pictures) Octopus is a work of art of Czech architect Jan Kaplický and his colleagues from Future systems. The name of project is Eye over Prague:
I think, now it’s time to get known more information about architect, about Jan Kaplicky.
Jan Kaplicky
Jan Kaplicky was born on 18th April 1937 in Prague. There he studied university VŠUP (artist-industrial university) and in 1968 he had immigrated to UK. He got to the architectonical office Denys Lasdun and Partners and he had worked there from 1969 to 1971. Next years were very successful, because he worked in Renzo Piana’s& Richard Roger’s atelier. This “company” is famous thanks to project Center Pompidou in Paris. In 1979, he and David Nixon originated their own architectonical studio-Future systems, where he creates up to now. When the 80’s finished he started to work with Amanda Levet for American NASA. His style of work is high-tech. Jan is inspirited by nature and he experimented with organic form during last years. He collaborated with prominent world’s artist, for example with Noraman Foster. He isn’t only architect. He teaches students at universities in Great Britain, in France, and in Germany. Jan Kaplicky was awarded for many times. He got the the most prestige British architectonical trophy-Stirlig prize. Some of his opuses:
Selfridges building in Birmingham
NAPLES SUBWAY UNIVERSITA 2003
Project Zed London
GREEN BIRD
Source: Instinkt(Czech journal), Wikipedia, my own opinions
Interview with Jakub Škrdla
How did you get to festival JID?
One year ago Mrs. Fexová asked me for help with work on festival. I was asked to create theme or jingle. That’s very nice because each festival should have a jingle which is there to start it. And there may develop some open air procession which will point to existence of festival. That’s all because lots of people invested lots of work to this festival. It will in short attract public attention and inform people about principles of open air theater. The result was really great.But how did you really go into?
Oh, I knew about this festival before this but it wasn’t possible for me to take part in it. I think it’s absolutely valuable for Jihlava and it would be bad without it. Many groups of theater players are used to coming to Jihlava and this is crucial if you’ve got recoverability of your energy which you are using because if you can’t show it then it’s of no use.And did Mrs. Fexová go directly to you?
She came to me really only for some small technical help or counsel and then we started to work together. And this year it was same. But did she go really directly to you like to the most experienced? No, no. It was about something different. She was going to borrow some stuff from our little private theater for presenting festival but it wasn’t possible. But I wasn’t going to let it be. We were looking for another way and then the idea about open air procession was born. It was much better. Then some workshop started and lots of quite interesting things in it. I think that at high school there are people at the age when they need to try everything and they may try everything. From this reason they need somebody like Mrs. Fexová who can give opportunity for this. It is superhuman performance.And this year?
So, we got together with Mrs. Fexová and we created the plan to realize some theater form and from this theater workshop arose. It’s easy to bring scripts 100 years old or write something by oneself and to propagandize this to actors. But it’s much better to find it and take it out from this gang. In fact it’s battle for shape of this play. And then to begin the formation of play on theme which come up out of you – and it’s soap opera.And what about whole festival?
This festival becomes such an event for this high school. It’s stopping on the way of year which has its implication. Collective work is very interesting too. In our group people see each other only for one or one and half of hour a week. They don’t know each other namely! They live together simply for this one hour but they are isolated for the rest of the week. This coming together is the attractive thing. And that’s probably why I’m doing it.
Standa Šelmeci
JID
JID is a regional student’s theatre festival. It’s been organized every year in spring since 2000. It’s a famous action in March for half of a week. These days are full of theatre plays in one of Jihlava theatres called Na Kopecku (On a Hill). There are lots of groups from the whole region which studied and perform plays they had written. There is a professional jury because winner moves up to national competition. Last year it was perfect festival. People could also visit some guide actions like concerts, author’s readings and so on. Headmaster of this festival, Iva Fexová, said: “It was really brilliant festival. Yes, we had some problems but where aren’t problems? It was better than during last years. “ This year the festival will be held from March 22 to March 25. But the guide actions started on 23rd November in cafe Etage in Jihlava with author’s reading. There were students of our school who wrote some interesting poems or essays. We could also listen to three short funny stories called Pohádky prenáramne k smíchu (Tales enormous for laugh), written and directed by actor Jakub Škrdla and his wife. Jakub Škrdla is a chief of one of five workshops too. Their work will be presented during the festival. Workshops With festival JID 20 – 07 come five workshops. The biggest one (and most interesting – I think) is lead by Jakub Škrdla. It started with school year. Participants can work on a theatre play. They are practicing some special methods quite interesting for “playing theatre”. Sometimes it’s like in gym. For more info, read interview with Jakub – you will find it in net news… :-)
Standa Šelmeci
Cultural life in Jihlava
Jihlava is the biggest city in our region so you can find lots of cultural events being organized here. Many concerts have taken place in Jihlava and you can listen to various kinds of music, for example classical music, jazz, punk, HC and SKA. There are three music clubs in Jihlava. Many non-professional music groups exist here. They play and organize discos in these clubs or on other interesting places such as old garages.
Jihlava is famous thanks to international festival of documentary films, which
takes place in local cinemas every autumn.
We have one big theatre (we call it Horácké) and few smaller theatres, for
example: Na kopečku, De facto mimo... But these theatres are closed in these
days, because unfortunately our politicians have decided to give more money for support of football club than of cultural life.
There are museum and galleries too, but only few people visit these places.
Hobit
We have a theatre company in our school too. Its name is Hobit and I would like to introduce it now. Hobit is a group full of young, promising and talented students - actors and actresses, occurring on patronage of Gymnázium Jihlava. Professor Zdeněk Krásenský has been the head of it since 1994. They have already introduced six successful plays. Their names are: Lojza Kápo, Mumraj, Aneška, Medvídek Pú, Houby and Pokusy o její život. They have also participated in many big festivals.
One of them - festival called Nahlížení – was organized in Bechyně last month. Our students performed the play Pokusy o její život. It is a drama about contemporary life. This drama is very difficult for understanding and is a little bit spectral. Actors are dressed full in black and have make-up so they look like mauled.
Jihlava theatre
Jihlava theatre is one of the most beautiful theatres in our district. There are 24 actors, who play on fantastic level and doesn´t matter if we are talking about comedy or tragedy. Lots of people come from far-away towns by buses to see the performances. There are a lot of discounts for seniors, regular audience and for students, but for me and my friends, theatre is a kind of more archaic entertainment.
History of our theatre
The start of the theatre is noted from 16th century. The first performance was played by students of city school. The theatre changed its place many times and finally one Polish bought an old building and decided to build a theatre stand. Since then lots of changes have been done. Recently unusually modern theatre has been opened with big parade.
The very first performance was a comedy, written by F. von Elscholze, called “Výchovné metody” and on 17th November audience of one thousand and three hundred people came and 7 hundred of them tried to sit on the gallery.
The emperor of our country Fantišek Josef I. visited one of those comedies in Town theatre on 6th November 1866 and unusually he stayed till the end of performance. In this theatre there was the very first public concert of nine years old Gustav Mahler, famous music writer and director. Rebuilding and reconstruction cost almost 141 million crowns already in 1995. On 7th March our ex-president Václav Havel visited our theatre.
I don’t like black-and-white photography so let’s go to see our colourful gallery.
In our town there is very nice gallery. There are a lot of paintings, which you can buy. This is the right shop for people, who like art. We don’t have to buy only paintings but also art needs like paints, paintbrushes, paper, pencils, chalks and so on. You know it…