B o h e m i a e R o s a VII 17 - 23 August 2007

S i t e B o d y E x p l o r a t i o n

Kuks Spa & Elbe River Valley - East Bohemia - Czech Republic

International Interdisciplinary Open-Air Workshop for dancers and artists exploring the relation among body, art and landscape led by Frank van de Ven, Milos Sejn

and guest teacher Michael Pospísil and Seamus Dunbar.

Suported by Bohemiae Rosa Foundation - Ministery of Culture in Czech Republic - Academy of Fine Arts in Prague - Theatrum Kuks Festival - Embassies of Ireland and the Netherlands in Czech Republic

Since 1995 Milos Sejn and Frank van de Ven have co-operated in their bi-annual interdisciplinary open air Body-Site-Exploration projects in various National Reserves in the Czech Republic (Kokorin Valley, Plasy Monastery, Bohemian Karst, Bechyne Monastery with the Luznice River, Bohemian Paradise, Sumava Mountains and Krkonose Mountains) known as the Bohemiae Rosa Project.

This intensive 7 day workshop work will evolve around the famous sculptures of Matthias Bernard Braun (1684 -1738). Working in the Kuks Spa area and the surrounding river Elbe Valley we investigate the baroque relation of Body and Landscape and its signification and relation to contemporary Performing Arts. The workshop is embedded within the Theatrum Kuks Festival of Baroque theatre, opera and music that takes place from 23 to 26 August 2007

Baroque chant and music expert Michael Pospísil will illuminate the Baroque theme with singing sessions working from the „Hymnal Little Nightingale of Paradise“ by Jan Jozef Bozan (a Hymnbook printed in 1719 under the auspices of Count of Sporck). Sculptor Seamus Dunbar will elucidate on the physical act of cutting stone.

Topics for the program include:

• MB -(mind/body, muscles/bones) dance training

• practice of and reflection on physical and mental training

• walking and wandering, silent walk, pilgrimage and nocturnal journeys

• baroque chant

• embodying and moving in and out Braun’s forest sculptures and allegories of Virtues and Vices

• investigating divergent senses of space and time

• peripatetic records, drawing, writing, immediate contact with surroundings

• mental topography of a location, myth, archaic mind and genius loci

• Baroque history of Kuks and Elbe river Valley

The body is a landscape in itself moving within the larger frame of the given surrounding environment. The vertical and horizontal layering of the (historical) landscape invites us to reflect upon our own layers and connections of self and imagination.

Practical information

Dates

17 – 23 August 2007, arrival evening of 16 August

Meeting Place: Kuks Spa near Dvur Kralove nad Labem, Czech Republic

Accessible by bus or train Prague - Jaromer - Kuks
phone: +420 608 524 563

E-mail: theatrum@post.cz

http://www.theatrum.zde.cz

The number of participants is limited. We recommend early applications.

Bring sleeping bag, sheets, work/yoga mat, backpack for day hikes, raincoat and hiking boots.

All participants must have a personal insurance and must provide a copy of this before start of the project.

PARTICIPANTS PROFILE

For artists and mature students working in the fields of performance, dance, landscape art, sculpture, photography, architecture, theatre, visual arts, biology and natural history.

No previous (dance) training is necessary but the workshop will be physically and mentally demanding, therefore a good overall condition is required.

INFORMATION

For extended flyer with biographies of Milos Sejn, Frank van de Ven, the guest teachers and further information and photos from Kuks area see www.bohemiaerosa.org

Kuks Spa & Elbe River Valley - East Bohemia - Czech Republic

Oh come Calliope and my instrument sharpen,

Help me reveal the Spa, its beauty and truth with pen.

The lovely Kuks Spa, where arts and grace do smile

My feeble hand chose this time to picture awhile.

This aforementioned spa lies by the Elbe’s banks,

And now the Czech, blessed rich with nature,

Beauty thanks.

Even though bush and wood hid the healing Kuskus well,

Everyone knows that treasure oft sleeps within a shell.

Gottfried Beniamin Hancke

THEATRVM FAGI

A Description of the Kuks Spa Situated in Bohemia

and Belonging to His Excellency the Count of Sporck

1722

Besides Adršpach Rocks Kuks belongs among the wonders of East Bohemia as THEATRUM FAGI – Sporck‘s theatre. Fagus, beech m Latin, is the monogram F.A.G.V.S. for Franz Anton Graf von Sporck (1662-1738). Son of Emperor‘s General Johann from Westphalia faced like a beech the storms of his time. After European travels (1680-1684) he created his visions m Kuks Spa (1692-1738), in „a beautiful valley“, matching the nature and arts in a baroque theatrum“, folk shows and entertainment, politics and satire, pamphlets and Masonics, altruism and anti-Jesuits, anti-lawyers fights, piety and Dance of Death cultus or the St Hubert hunting principles. The functional spa with „healing“ springs was only a pretence for creating the urbanite complex with the profane and religious banks: deer-park around hospice and Mercy Brethren cloister, Count‘s seat, spa buildings, cascade staircase, colonnade, follies, fountains, House of Philosophers, towers with horologe, allegories of Virtues and Vices, Milles Christianus, David and Golias, dwarfs, playing Polyphemos or rotating statues of Truth and Justice. „Stony theatre“ in the New Forest is part of the area, too.

The dramatic sculptures in Braun‘s Bethlehem (UNESCO list 2000) offered caves, hermitages and herb gardens, tree carvings and wildlife. Sporck‘s admiration for arts brought to Kuks leading architects (G. B. Alliprandi, P. Netolla, G. P. della Torre), sculptors (M. B. Braun, J. F. Kohl), painters (P. Brandl), engravers (M. Rentz, Montallegre, A. Wortmann, Hiebel), poets (G. B. Hancke, J. Ch. Günther), troupes (A. J. Geissler, H. Rademin, F. A. Defraine), musicians (T. A. Seeman, V. Svída, P. Rölling, F. Ferdinand) and opera companies (Peruzzi-Denzio 1724, supported by A. Vivaldi from Venice) to build up „small Versailles“ in Kuks.

by Stanislav Bohadlo

More about M. B. Braun´s Sculptures and Kuks Spa

BIOGRAPHIES

Milos Sejn works in the fields of visual art, performance and study of visual perception. From the beginning of the 1960s he took pictures, drew, collected and described his observations of nature during his wanderings through the Czech landscape. Currently he teaches mixed media and the relationship of nature and art as intrinsic needs of the mind at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, and focuses on immediate creative possibilities, based upon relations between historical humanized landscapes and intact nature.
CD ROMs: Colorvm Natvrae Varietas (Centrum for Culture and Communication in Budapest c3, 2000); Make Your Own Island/Make Your Own Forest (Utrecht School of the Arts, Institute for postgraduate and professional higher education in the Arts, 2001)

Frank van de Ven is a dancer and choreographer who spend his formative years in Japan working with Min Tanaka and the Maijuku Performance Company. In 1993 he founded together with Katerina Bakatsaki 'Body Weather Amsterdam', a platform for training and performance. Since 1995 he conducts with Milos Sejn the interdisciplinary Bohemiae Rosa Project, connecting body and landscape with art, geology and architecture. Interest in dance and theory led to the 'How to make yourself a Dancing Body Without Organs' Project. Together with Peter Snow (Monash University) he performs the famed Thought/Action Improvisations. An ongoing collaboration exists with musician Daniel Schorno, artistic director of Steim Amsterdam.
Films (video and 16mm): Dancing Plasy Times 8, CI-VIT, LOM and NOUGHTS.

Guest teachers:

Michael Pospísil studied at Prague Conservatory in the class of J.Horacek and then privately with Terezie Blumova. Since 1986 he has been active in the field of early music as a singer as an instrumentalist as well as organizing numerous musical events. He collaborated on more than 50 CDs with ensembles Musica Antiqua Praha, Capella Regia Musicalis, Choeur Gregorien De Paris, Linnamuusikuud Tallinn, Bornus Consort Warszawa and others. In 1993 he founded his own ensemble Ritornello and since 1996 he has been leading the ensemble Prague Chamber Singers. An important part of his work consists in the intensive research of original sources, in reconstructing the old manuscripts and in the related editorial work (Sonatas of Kromeriz, Valerius Otto’s Dances, Michna’s Czech Lute, songs from Czech Cantionales, etc.).

Sculptor Seamus Dunbar is based in Manorhamilton, Co Leitrim, where he has lived for the past twelve years. Since graduating from the National College of Art and Design in Dublin in 1984, he has worked as a freelance artist, complemented by periods in stone restoration and as a sculpture tutor at the Fire Station Artists and Leitrim Sculpture Centre, of which he is a co-founder. He is best known for his public sculptures, which are often inspired by human interaction with architectural forms, ancient and modern. He has participated in symposia in Ireland and abroad, and been the recipient of numerous awards and bursaries.

Seamus’ connection with dance dates back to the 1980s when he first worked with choreographer Cathy O’Kennedy, a collaborative process that he has rekindled in recent years. The artist’s involvement with Body Weather began in September 2006 when he attended a Body/Landscape workshop with Frank van de Ven and Milos Sejn in Killarney National Park.

Dictionary definitions

*sculpture n., pl. –es [late Middle English: from Latin sculptura, from sculpere “carve”. The art of making two- or three-dimensional representative or abstract forms, esp. by carving stone or wood or by casting metal or plaster. 1. a work of such a kind : a bronze sculpture | a collection of sculpture. 2. Zoology & Botany raised or sunken patterns or texture on the surface of a shell, pollen grain, cuticle, or other biological specimen.
*baroque ORIGIN mid 18th cent.: from French (originally designating a pearl of irregular shape), from Portuguese barroco, Spanish barrueco, or Italian barocco; of unknown ultimate origin.

*song ORIGIN Old English sang, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch zang and German Sang, also to sing. n. A short poem or other set of words set to music or meant to be sung. • singing or vocal music : the young airmen broke into song. • a musical composition suggestive of a song. • the musical phrases uttered by some birds, whales, and insects, typically forming a recognizable and repeated sequence and used chiefly for territorial defense or for attracting mates. • a poem, esp. one in rhymed stanzas. • archaic poetry. 1 a beautiful song air, strain, ditty, melody, tune, number, track, anthem, hymn, chanty, chantey, ballad, aria. 2 the song of the birds call(s), chirping, cheeping, peeping, chirruping, warble(s), warbling, trilling, twitter; birdsong.

*site n., pl. –es [Latin situs “place, position”, from sinere “to leave, place, lay” ] 1. the actual or planned location 2 the place or scene of something (a camp site) / site vt., to place on a site or in position: locate

*body n., pl. -ies [OE, bodig, cask] 1. the whole physical substance of a man, animal or plant 2. the trunk of a man or animal 3. a corpse 4. [Colloq.] a person 5. a distinct mass [a body of water] 6. a distinct group of people or things 7. the main part 8. substance or consistency, as of liquid 9. richness of flavor

*exploration n., pl. –s the act or an instance of exploring / explore: seek to ascertain, examine into XVI; search into (a country, etc) XVII 1. to search through or into 2. to examine carefully and in detail especially for diagnostic purposes 3. to penetrate into or range over for purposes of discovery 4. to make or conduct a systematic search [Latin explorare “to seek for”, from ex- + plorare “to cry out”; probably from the outcry of hunters on sighting game]

*landscape n., pl. –es [Dutsch landschap, from land+schap “-ship” ] 1. a picture of natural inland scenery 2. a portion of land that the eye can see in one glance

*forest n., pl. –s [Old French, “forest, hunting preserve” , Medieval Lain forestis, from Latin foris “outside”] 1. a dense growth of trees and underbrush covering a large tract; also: an area covered by forest, 2. something resembling a forest especially in profusion (a forest of masts)

*wander vb., wan-dered, wan-der-ing [OE, wandrian] 1. to move about aimlessly or without a fixed course or goal : ramble 2a to deviate (as from a course) : stray 2b to go astray morally : err 2c to lose normal mental comtact (as delirium or madness)

*walk n., pl. –s [vb OE, wealkan “to roll, toss” ] 1. a going on foot (go for a walk) 2. a place, path, or course for walking 3. distance to be walked 4a manner of living 4b social or economic statzs (various walks of life) 5a manner of walking 5b a gait of a four-footed animal in which there are always at least two feet on the ground

Bohemiae Rosa Project 2007