The 15th edition of the Theatre World festival in Brno ended last Tuesday, 28 May, attracting record crowds of over 11,500 combined, scoring high in audience appreciation, and recording numerous sold-outs and an average attendance of almost 85%.
The festival included more than 75 performances, reaching more than 100 events including the accompanying program. Over 50 foreign and domestic drama, dance and alternative theatre troupes travelled to Brno to perform on its stages.
The festival included all the major theatres of Brno, including the premises of the Brno National Theatre (the Mahen, Janáček, and Reduta Theatres), Divadlo Husa na Provazku, the drama and music stages of the Brno Municipal Theatre, the Polárka Theater and Radost Theater, both JAMU art stages (Studio Marta and Divadlo na Orlí), as well as other non-theatre spaces such as the park on Moravské náměstí, Káznice, and the G2 pavilion at the Brno exhibition grounds.
With this extensive program, the Theatre World festival is among the three largest events of its kind in the Czech Republic.
Among the highlights appreciated by the public was the captivating dance performance “The Jungle Book in a different way” in the Janáček Theater, portrayed by the company of the British-Bangladeshi dancer and choreographer Akram Khan, which returned to the Czech Republic after 10 years to present the well-known story of the boy Mowgli in the new current contexts of our time. The show “Hokus” by the Swiss neo-circus group Cie Philippe Saire also met with a rapturous response from the smallest spectators and their parents.
Prominent acting personalities also appeared at the festival, such as British performer Deb Pugh, whose mythological one-woman show “Beautiful Wicked Things” took the stage at Husa na Provazku. The same space hosted the dancers of the TRIO production, “For Beauty Alone”, which brought a variety of dance styles from voguing to samba to the theatre hall from Mexico, Ivory Coast and the US.
As part of the foreign program, the Slovak National Theatre performed the drama “Children” twice in front of a full Mahen Theater, with a cast of leading stars of the acting troupe. The final highlight of the festival was the Polish project “Employees” from Teatr Studio in Warsaw – a technically challenging multimedia project directed by Łukasz Twarkowski, taking place in an unspecified future – performed on 27 and 28 May at the Brno Exhibition Centre.
As in last year’s editions, a rich accompanying program graced the streets of Brno. The highlight, under the name of “Visitors”, was the evening walk of large luminous puppets of fish and creatures of the underwater world by V.O.S.A. Theatre, which delighted the public on Zelny trh.
Moravské náměstí also offered many side activities during the festival, including activities for children, yoga, and the ballet exhibition “Crying Nymphs” directly in the fountain – the so-called “Brno Sea” – by the junior ensemble Ballet NdB2.
Next year’s 16th edition of the festival will take place from 23-28 May 2025.
