Archive: Culture | Dance

This Wednesday, December 5th, Czech children eagerly await the visit of the bearded St. Nicholas and his two companions – an angel and a devil. The much treasured tradition has been going strong for centuries and is unlikely to disappear any time soon.

Craftsmen producing glass Christmas ornaments and resist block printing, who were nominated last year, are eagerly awaiting the decision of a special UNESCO committee that is to decide whether they will have the honour of being listed on its Intangible Cultural Heritage list. Meanwhile the country’s beer barrel coopers, bagpipers and chenille fabric producers are hoping to be nominated in the future.

The Trebbia foundation for artists and art benefactors will hand out its annual awards at a ceremony in the Spanish Hall of Prague Castle on Sunday evening. The prize for lifetime achievement will go to Czech opera singer Eva Randová.

Slovak photographer Zuzana Mináčová and Czech-born Darja Klimentová, former Prima Ballerina of English National Ballet, will be among the recipients of the award for creative activities.

The 30th edition of the Tanec Praha festival of dance began on Friday night with a performance of East Shadow by the great Czech choreographer Jiří Kylián at Prague’s Ponec theatre. Mr. Kylián, who is 71, was recently made a member of the prestigious Académie francaise. He was involved in the inception of Tanec Praha in the late 1980s.

Other highlights of this year’s edition of the festival include SUNNY by the Israeli choreographer Emanuel Gat and Dancing Grandmothers by the Korean choreographer Eun-Me Ahn.

Burning witches on April 30-May 1 is an ancient pagan tradition which developed in various European countries including the Czech Republic. People believed witches were especially active on that night and that they flew above people’s heads and later trampled all the crops sown in the fields. That’s the reason why fires were lit with the express aim of burning the witches.

Many musical projects have noteworthy origin stories. But Dálava’s is truly one of a kind. Julia Úlehla and her musical and life partner Aram Bajakian began performing ancient Moravian folk songs – which they hadn’t heard – after happening upon them in a book named Živá píseň (Living Song). It had been compiled in the early 20th century by the former’s great-grandfather Vladimír Úlehla, a remarkable polymath.

The Czech Republic has a rather unusual tradition on Easter Monday. Boys get willow branches, braid them together into whips and decorate them with ribbons to whip girls with for luck and fertility. The word for this whip in Czech is pomlázka, which has also become the name of the tradition itself. To learn more about pomlázka I interviewed three Czechs. The first is a 17 year-old-girl with several brothers, the second is an active feminist and the third is an expert on Czech folklore.

Easter celebrations in the Czech Republic, which combine both Christian traditions and ancient pagan customs, are today mostly associated with painting eggs, whipping girls as well as eating loads of chocolates. But for dancer Antonie Svobodová, this time of year symbolizes a deep connection with the Earth. For more than 20 years, she has been marking the return of Spring by a ritual dance, based on age-old pagan rituals:

Czechoslovakia gained independence in 1918. But even now, after nearly a century you can find customs and traditions that are very similar to most countries that formed the old Austrian-Hungarian Empire. What Czechia shares with Austria and especially Vienna, is the tradition of classical dance classes that are still considered something of a “rite of passage” in both neighboring countries.

The Ride of the Kings – a unique and colourful tradition practiced in only four south-east Moravian villages took place in the village of Hluk on Sunday. The ride refers to the flight of Hungarian King Matthias Corvinus from Czech King George of Podébrady in the 15th century and involves a festive ride through the village with a boy portraying the monarch dresses in a traditional women’s folk costume to ‘mask’ his identity. The event which involves months of preparations end with a big celebration, dancing, drinking and merrymaking. The Ride of the Kings is on UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage.