The Theater Faculty DAMU will be represented by the Scenography Department, which was established after WWII as the first of its kind in the world. It was founded by František Tröster, who took advantage of his many years of practice as a scenographer to build on the best tradition of the Czechoslovakian and European inter-war avant-garde. He first separated scenography from architecture, sculpture and painting and then linked it closely with the other theatrical disciplines - in particular directing and acting. The part of the exhibition covering the field of scenography and specialization in costumes and makeup will be presented in the form of drawings, designs, objects, spatial compositions and photographs, as well as videos of realizations and projects. Often, the students also create unconventional costume objects based on themes arising, for example, from moods, emotions, feelings and socio-political situations and subjects. “Objects based on the themes of fragility, aggression, joy, hatred, happiness, career, corruption etc. are simultaneously a demonstration of realizations from unconventional materials and work processes. Their prototypes often serve as a demonstration or guideline for stage or film production and can also be used as independent exhibits. Their primary mission, however, is their connection as a stage costume with the actor and his movements and actions", professor Jana Zbořilová of the Theater Faculty explains what her students created for the exhibition. Because costume objects cannot exist without the specific space in which the dramatic movement unfolds, spatial layouts and maquettes that are closely associated with the actor’s actions and the costume will also be shown at the exhibition.
The Film and TV Faculty FAMU brings to Beijing the work of students of the Photography Department, which shows its ongoing heterogenity. The department was one of the first places in Europe and in the world where it was possible to study photography at university level. Thanks to this tradition, however, it was considerably conservative for a long time, placing emphasis on black-and-white documentation. However, the development of new perspectives in photography and the ever-growing quantity of technical approaches, including digital manipulation, inevitably undermined this conservative perspective. Alongside this, in the 1990s the Department also launched parallel study in English, thus becoming an international meeting place for students from all over the world – including Chinese students. The exhibition of the FAMU Photography Department sets out to draw attention to the diversity of the technical image (photographs and videos) in the present day. “Photography once used to create for us a sort of unified image of the world. Thousands and millions of photographs informed us of what Paris, New York, the Egyptian pyramids, the Great Wall of China, anacondas and koalas looked like. It was a relatively holistic image composed of millions of fragments. As photography started to become a legitimate artistic genre, however, and especially a medium capable of expressing various points of view and diversifying technically, the mosaic altered, fell apart, expanded and finally, metaphorically speaking, exploded. We find many fragments that are charming in themselves and that we can, if we so wish, compose into our own mosaics – albeit non-uniform, but interconnected,” the associate professor Robert Silverio explains the concept of the photography exhibition the head of the department.
The students of the Composition Department of the Music and Dance Faculty AMU are joining the exhibition in its final week. They are preparing for the extensive exhibition spaces a series of acoustic interventions of spatial sound. At the closing night they will present a concert program accompanied by a costume performance of the Scenography Department of DAMU. As an accompanying programme of this project will be introduced the “Gate”, sound installation with the main idea of the realization of oneself in the time and space through the sound and concentrated perception surrounding sounds, rustles, bustles and city noise. Thanks to the speed, in which man usually moves in in the city, loses detailed preception of the sense of the world. In reality, however, the background noise consists of many interesting audio services containing musical or rustle elements and it depense only on the manndr of our perception - if the man would get annoyed or become to be fascinated.
About the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague
The Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague was founded in 1885. Throughout its existence it has been one of the highest quality arts and design educational institutions, which is proven by the number of successful graduates who are respected experts with a prestige that extends beyond the borders of the Czech Republic.
The school is divided into six departments – Architecture, Design, Fine Arts, Applied Arts, Graphics and Art History. The individual departments are further subdivided into studios according to specialization, which are headed by respected personalities in their fields.
About DAMU
The Theater Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts (DAMU) was established immediately after WWII in response to the need to educate theatrical artists. The faculty expanded during its 60 years of existence and incorporated new development trends in theater, becoming a pluralistic school in which the most distinguished personalities of Czech theatrical life teach in the fields of acting, directing, dramaturgy and dramatic theory, scenography and theatrical production, in which personalitie teaches: acting, directory, dramaturgy, theatral theory, scenography and theatral and personalities whose diversified approach carries theater over into the spheres of original authorship, philosophy and teacher training.
About FAMU
The Film and TV Faculty (FAMU) was created in the years 1946/47 as a fifth faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. FAMU was created in the years 1946/47 as the fifth film school in the world. At the turn of the 1950s and 60s, it became a natural center for the New Czech Wave, the works of which brought a distinctive contribution to world cinematography. Its students are educated primarily for professions connected with film, television, electronic media and traditional broadcasting media.
About HAMU
The Music and Dance Faculty ( HAMU) was established in 1945. After a number of other European cultures and also got Czech music college grant equal rihts to musical arts not only with technical disciplines, as well as with arts or architecture. He soon was expanded of dance departement - dance pedagogique, choreopgraphy, dance theory, which also later contents nonverbal theatre. In the middle of the faculty interest is to raise the top of the intepretating, composing, conducting, musical directing, musical theoretic and musical managing graduate.
