Waterfalls of the Green creek, © photo Sejn 30.7.201 Panorama of sandstone rocks above the Isara river / Bohemian Paradise
s e j n b o h e m i ae r o s a
Landscape & Memory
Bohemian Paradise & Isara River - The Czech Republic
International Interdisciplinary Open-Air Workshop for artists and dancers exploring the relation between body, art and landscape
led by Frank van de Ven and Milos Sejn
Waterfalls of the Green creek,
©
photo Sejn 30.7.201 Panorama of sandstone rocks
above the Isara river / Bohemian Paradise
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 & Cultural Reserves in the Czech Republic (Kokorin Valley, Plasy Monastery, Bohemian Karst, Bechyne Monastery with the Luznice River, Bohemian Paradise, Sumava and Rychleby Mountains, Kuks Spa, The Elbe Sandstone Mountains, Morava River, the Giant Mountains) known as the Bohemiae Rosa Project.
This
edition of the Bohemiae Rosa Project will take place in the northeastern part of
the Czech Republic right by the banks of the meandering Jizera River, known by
the ancient name of Isara. Here we can find extensive original meadows, exposed
bedrock and springs with rare preserved stands of giant horsetail. The territory
is also the northern border of the Bohemian Paradise, full of sandstone rock
towns, where we will work primarily. In our area, called Malá Skála, in addition
to Mesolithic caves and early medieval castles, we also find outstanding
examples of landscape and sculptural/textual interventions from the era of high
romanticism. While walking and working in the Bohemian Paradise / Isara river we
investigate the numerous relations between Body & Landscape / Landscape & Memory
and their significance to contemporary (Performing & Eco) Arts.
The program will include:
• MB - (mind/body, muscles/bones) movement training
• practice of and reflection on physical and mental training
• walking and wandering, silent walk, pilgrimage and nocturnal journeys
• various modes of experiencing body, movement and landscape
• 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
• geology, archaeology and history of the Landscape as a model of self: layers, vertical connections and labyrinths
An integral part of the workshop will be the individual artistic projects that participants are encouraged to formulate and work on for about 1 to 2 hours a day. (in the fields architecture, landscape art, dance, performance, photography, sculpture, theatre, visual arts, biology and natural history). The workshop leaders are available to guide and support these processes.
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.
DATES
August 25 -30, 2023, arrival in the evening of
August 24
Meeting Place: Cottage Chalupa Bukovina, Czech Republic
http://www.chalupabukovina.cz
place
GPS: 50°36'34.739"N, 15°10'32.085"E
Nearby airport is in Praha. 1 hour by
car from Prague.
Place is accessible by train (Final station Dolánky from Prague with a transfer
in Turnov.).
The target rendezvous, it is the 1 km walk.
Parking directly in the accommodation area.
E X T E N D E D I N F O R M A T I O N
Franz Ferdinand Effenberger: Rock Pantheon and
nature park on the Malá Skála estate in Bohemia, 1828
Bohemian Paradise
WikipediA
Jizera river
WikipediA
Pantheon
WikipediA
historical guide to german
historical guide in czech
Charming landscape in the northeastern Bohemia bears a truthful name Český ráj
(Bohemian Paradise). The most outstanding feature of this landscape are the
romantic sandstone formations with no less romantic ruins of old fortified
castles. A verid mosaic of natural beauty and historical monuments is
accumulated on a relatively small spáče of land, attracts every perceptive
visitor and leaves with him lasting and lovely memories. In the northeast as a
mighty guard to the Jizerské mountains and to the Krkonoše massive extends the
Kozákov ridge (the highest point in the landscape 744 meters) and Tábor (678 mts)
From here at a good visibility ono overlooks a great part of Bohemia up to the
fertile Polabian lowlands. The name as the heart of Český ráj bears the town of
precious stones and unique stone-cuttinp. Turnov. From the south-west opens gate
to Český ráj The town Mnichovo Hradiště and from the southeast the town Jičín;
to the north in the deep valley of Jizera river is spreading the town of glass
Železný Brod. The main symbol of Český ráj is the basalt doublehump Trosky with
the ruin of a medieval castle, characteristic at a distance with its silhouette.
The well known tourist route going through the landscape remarkable places
between Mnichovo Hradiště and Jičín is the 98 kilometres long Zlatá stezka
(Golden path) of Český ráj.
Český ráj for its multiform of landscape points and of natural richness was
rightly declared, as the first in Czechoslovakia, the preserved territory,
including Hruboskalsko region up to Trosky a Příhrazské skály (rocks) up to the
castle Kost, in a total area of 95 km2. Further important parts of Český ráj,
chiefly Maloskalsko region and the whole ridge of Kozákov Tábor are still
waiting to be declared as an extended preserved territory from the year 1975 up
today. Outside Český ráj are also three State natural reservations (Prachovské
skály - wood growth Na hranicích at Bukovina - and the basalt hill Káčov) and
several protected natural formations (Suché skály, Klokočské skály, Borecké
skály, western slope of Kozákov and the basalt hill Zebín).
From the geological point of view is almost all Český ráj a
part of the Bohemian chalk table. Its origin goes back to the Mesozoic period,
roughly before 100millions of years. In that time began to penetrate shallow sea
into the lower parts of the Bohemian massif. In the sea settled sandstones,
marls, clays or clay slates. For Český ráj are especially important the ashlar
sandstones, in their mighty layers originated in million years lasting erosion,
the known sandstone formations with high towers and deep cloughs. Volcanic
activity on the beginning of the lounger Tertiary resulted in an array of basalt
knobs, making often a dominant of the landscape, the world-wide unique doubled
knog Trosky, Vyskeř, Mužský, Střelečská hurá, Sokol, Kumburk, Veliš and others.
On the northeast of Český ráj ends the chalk region by a specific bizarre rocks
of the Maloskalský ridge and Suché skály. In the places of the so called Lužice
dislocation which, in the end of the Palaeozoic Age, folded the predominantly
melaphyric ridge Kozákov - Tábor. In melaphyre are to be found on several pláčeš
precious stones, making famous this landscape - agates, amethysts, jaspers,
smoke-quarz, chalcedony.
Woods of Český ráj are prevalently secondary clusters of
spruces, on the stone plateaus prevail pine woods, in places pervaded by poor
acidophilous oak woods. In them, on the shallow soil, originated by
disintegration of silicious sandstones, are wide growth of bilberries. various
firns, including the biggest fim bracken. heath, out of grasses the hair grass,
numerous mosses and lichens. Richer flora is in the oak-hornbeam woods in the
southern part of thecountry or in the beech woods in the Jizera valley in the
Maloskalsko region. A remarkable plant of some places in Český ráj is the
horsetail, over 1 meter high. Rare flora is to be found on the last remainder of
the peat and swamp meadqws and in the surroundings of the lovely lakes such as
Věžický, Vidlák, Nebákov, Drhlenské rybníky, Komárovský, Žabakor or Jinolické
rybníky. Also a rich net of brooks and small creeks, aiming chiefly to the
Jizera river, create romantic nooks with interesting botanical and animal
species.
Settlement of Český ráj is of an age-old date, it began
already in the older Stone Age. In the 3rd millennium b.Chr. are documented many
agricultural settlements in an almost continuous zone out of Bohemian inside up
to the Turnov region, to the rocks of Prachov and the Sobotka region. There
interchanged people of volutě portery, stitched pottery, people of the um
fields, Celts, Teutons and Slavic Croats. Mighty Slav walled settlements are
known in the precincts of the Mužský hill and in the rocks of Prachov. In the
12th-15th centuary, when this country was ruled by the members of the powerful
Markvartic elán and its branches Vartemberks, Wallensteins and Lemberks,
numerous fortified castles and redoubts were bulit and their picturesque ruins
attract today thousands of tourists. They are for inst. Frýdštejn, Zbirohy,
Rotštejn, Valečov, Valdštejn, Trosky, Kost, Bradlec and Kumburk. In that time
towns were founded which, in the course of time, developed to cultural and later
some of them to industrial centres: Turnov, Jičín, Mnichovo Hradiště, Železný
Brod. Lomnice nad Popelkou, Sobotka. Rovensko pod Troskami. From
cultural-historical singularities of Český ráj are of outstanding importance
also castles, bulit sometimes on places of past fortified castles or medieval
strongholds. In some of them are installed valuable collections of furniture,
paintings, pottery, weapons etc., others are specially used. Out of the known
could be mentioned: Sychrov, Hrubý Rohozec. Hrubá Skála, Mnichovo Hradiště,
Jičín, Humprecht, Staré Hrady. Charm of Český ráj were not complete without folk
architecture and fortunately there is still lot of it in some villages and in
seclusions: from the Dlask estate in Dolanky near Turnov, over the estates in
Příšovice, in Vesec near Sobotka, in Maloskalsko, in Markvartice, timber-framed
houses in Železný Brod up to the belfries in Rovensko pod Troskami, in Železný
Brod or in Osek near Sobotka.
In Český ráj have their birthplace whole range of Czech famous personages. Many
others found liking for it. The Czech historian Josef Pekař, native from Malý
Rohozec, wrote about Český ráj: „There‘s no such landscape all the world over in
which I return again and again to breath in the physical and moral beauty of it,
to gather new powers, thoroughly enjoyed my fatherland. In it and through it l
grew into what l am, a Czech patriot and historian“.
by RNDr. Bohumil Slavík, CSc.
BIOGRAPHIES
Milos Sejn
works in the fields of visual art, performance and study of visual perception.
In 1990 he was appointed professor of painting and from this year to 2011 he
leads an intermediate studio with a focus on landscape ecology and environment
at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. He has worked with the world´s leading
artists such as The Harrisons (Elbe
River Project). He is also the creator of the Solar Mountain near Olomouc and
a number ot other projects related to landscape and memory. Many of his works
have been presented at hundreds of exhibitions around the word.
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. In recent years,
he has worked mainly in Australia in various parts of the continet.
Dictionary definitions
*site n., pl. -s [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
*landscape n., pl. -s [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
*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 contact (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 status (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
Contact: Katerina Bilejova
e-mail:
Katerina.Bilejova@fhs.cuni.cz