I looked at the earth, and it was formless and empty; and at the heavens, and their light was gone. I looked at the mountains, and they were quaking; all the hills were swaying. I looked, and there were no people; every bird in the sky had flown away.
Jeremiah: IV; 23 – 25
“Doppelgänger” is the phantom or the double-located ghost, who has not his shadow neither the image in the mirror…
“Doppelgänger” is the theatrical anagram and the scenic permutation of the biblical symbols. In the performance has been used the unconventional process of narrative so-called associative edition, when the particular scenes are connected on the basis of free coherences and so-called dual encoding. This way of narrative is absolutely exceptional in theatre. Such manner of work is characteristic for example for creation of movie director David Lynch, who applied it among others in his last picture Inland Empire, alike as Terrence Malick in the movie The Thin Red Line or Andrej Tarkovskij in the movie The Mirror.
The performance “Doppelgänger” is a story about the double-ganger of the resurrected Lazar, who appears after Lazar's coming through the gate of light. The principle of scenic permutation of the biblical symbols is shown in an allegory of creation of Adam Kadmov and Lilith, the prophecy of Jeremiah about Messiah's coming and the biblical Lazar's resurrection.
The origin of Teatr Novogo Fronta lies in St. Petersburg, Russia, where this theatre company was established in 1993. Their early work resulted from experiments in the field of the relationship between the actor's body - the only material being used by the actor - and the space of the event. The first performance “Vremja Durak” (The Time The Stupid, 1994) was presented on their first European tour and its theme was the fear of what the future in Russia might hold. After the tour, Teatr Novogo Fronta settled in Prague, Czech Republic.
The company has included other members or guests from the Czech Republic, Japan, Russia, Canada, Italy, Slovakia, Germany, France, Sardinia, Togo, Poland, Austria, Greece and Denmark. Teatr Novogo Fronta's creativity and stage presentation is impressive both in its scale and variety, ranging from street theatre and improvized sets to exacting and directed plays on classical theatre stages. Theatre critics describe their work as “bitter dance grotesque,” “divided dance,”or compared their movement act to butoh.
Since its inception, Teatr Novogo Fronta has performed dozens of performances all over the Czech Republic, in Germany, Poland, Switzerland, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia and England, joined festivals in Scotland, Hungary, Bosnia, Latvia and Denmark and during the last European tours performed in Holland, Belgium, France, Finland, Russia, Italy, Austria and Germany.
Performances of the Teatr Novogo Fronta are constructed from images, which stand on the frontier between mysticism and abstraction, circus art and modern dance, where the main force is the action, improvization and tension amplified by the ridiculousness of human tragedy. Teatr Novogo Fronta currently performs five own plays. At present the group is working on the theme of the eternal mythic martyrdom of human being.
This performance has been possible with the kind support of the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Belgrade. |
