Czech Centre London

Women in Focus: Daria Klimentová

The event took place on Tue 25th April 2023 Czech Centre at the Czech Embassy Cinema, London W8

Our series Women in Focus continues with none other than Daria Klimentová, a photographer, ballet teacher and world-renowned Prima Ballerina. Having spent most of her career as a lead principal dancer at English National Ballet, Daria will discuss her successful professional journey from her ballet beginnings in Communist Czechoslovakia through her peak time as a dancer to her retirement and change of career direction. She will share what it takes to get to the top (and remain there), reveal the backstage struggles of a ballerina, and whether it is possible to combine a busy career with a family life.

Followed by a Q&A session with the audience.

About the speaker:

Following her graduation from Prague State Conservatorie of Music and Dance in 1989, Daria Klimentová joined National Theatre Ballet in Prague as a soloist, and was promoted to principal dancer a year later. In 1992, she joined Cape Town City Ballet in South Africa as principal. The following year, she joined the Scottish Ballet as a principal dancer. In 1996, Klimentová joined the English National Ballet at the invitation of then-artistic director Derek Deane. Since 2003 Daria has been the founder and Director of the Prague International Ballet Masterclasses held at the magnificent studios of the National Theatre Company in Prague.

In March 2013 Daria published her autobiography titled Daria Klimentova – Agony and Ecstasy: My Life in Dance. In 2014 she finished training as a teacher at The Royal Ballet School and joined the teaching staff there in September 2014 following her retirement as a ballet dancer.

 

More information about upcoming events:

https://london.czechcentres.cz/en/program

 

#dariaklimentova #primaballerina #womeninfocus

Poetry meets visual arts | Book launch | Pavla Melková, Joshua Mensch & Antony Gormley

Recording took place on THU 13 APR 2023 at the Czech Embassy Cinema, Notting Hill, London W8

Celebrating the bilingual publication of The Gravitational Field of the Inexpressible, Czech poet and architect Pavla Melková and leading British sculptor Antony Gormley meet on stage to continue an artistic dialogue that started six years ago in Prague when they first met and the idea of a joint book was born. In The Gravitational Field of the Inexpressible Pavla Melková’s poetry meets Antony Gormley’s drawings, circling the same centre and unfolding from the same horizon in their search for the essence of life, to emerge in a common language. Antony Gormley’s images and a staged reading of Pavla Melková’s poems by translator and poet Joshua Mensch will accompany the launch of this bilingual edition. Followed by audience Q&A and a book signing.

PAVLA MELKOVÁ is a practising architect, visual artist, poet and writer who regularly lectures on art and architecture. Her widely-recognized architecture is visible throughout the Czech Republic, where she has won numerous awards, including Architect of the Year (2014), the Prague Mayor’s Prize (2012), and the National Prize for Architecture (2012). She has published seven books on architecture, including most recently The Humanistic Role of Architecture (2016) and The Architecture of Reciprocity (2020), and is a regular contributor to professional architecture journals, anthologies, and collaborative works. Her two volumes of poetry include The Edges of the Day (2017) and Inner Time (2019). In 2012, she founded the Office for Public Space at the Institute for Planning and Development of the City of Prague (IPR), which she headed until 2017. Currently, she is a member and vice-chair of the Gremial Council of IPR, and is a partner at the architecture firm MCA atelier, which she co-founded. In 2015, she founded the course Concept and Interpretation at the Faculty of Architecture, where she teaches.

ANTONY GORMLEY is widely acclaimed for his sculptures, installations and public artworks that investigate the relationship of the human body to space. His work has developed the potential opened up by sculpture since the 1960s through a critical engagement with both his own body and those of others in a way that confronts fundamental questions of where human beings stand in relation to nature and the cosmos. Gormley continually tries to identify the space of art as a place of becoming in which new behaviors, thoughts and feelings can arise. Gormley’s work has been widely exhibited throughout the UK and internationally. A major solo exhibition of his work was presented at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in September 2019. Permanent public works include the Angel of the North (Gateshead, England), Another Place (Crosby Beach, England), Inside Australia (Lake Ballard, Western Australia), Exposure (Lelystad, The Netherlands) and Chord (MIT – Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA). Gormley was awarded the Turner Prize in 1994, the South Bank Prize for Visual Art in 1999, the Bernhard Heiliger Award for Sculpture in 2007, the Obayashi Prize in 2012 and the Praemium Imperiale in 2013. In 1997 he was made an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) and was made a knight in the New Year’s Honours list in 2014. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, an Honorary Doctor of the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity and Jesus Colleges, Cambridge. Gormley has been a Royal Academician since 2003.

JOSHUA MENSCH is a poet and translator based in the Czech Republic. He is the author of Because: A Lyric Memoir (W. W. Norton, 2018). He has served as an editor of B O D Y since 2012. The Gravitational Field of the Inexpressible is a discourse between the languages of poetry and the visual arts. The book captures a dialogue between leading British sculptor Anthony Gormley and Czech poet Pavla Melková. The lines made by the words in the poems and lines of the drawings are traces that bring closer the shape of the essence – the essence of the world, our lives, relationships, and situations. The strokes of the words of the poetry and the strokes of the lines of the drawings circle the same centre and unfold from the same horizon. When the marks cross paths, the shape becomes more and more evident. Absorbed in the strokes, and with developing awareness, one mutual language emerges. This establishes the meaning of their encounter.

Above all The Gravitational Field of the Inexpressible is an implemented work of art, it is a fusion of two components in a provoking cyclical relationship - Pavel Klusak, Qartal

For more information about upcoming events, please, head to the Czech Centre London website: 

https://london.czechcentres.cz/en/program

#booklaunch #poetry #visualart

Women in Focus: Monika Čejková

Art historian, writer and curator of Modern and Contemporary Art Collection at National Gallery Prague, Monika Čejková, was opening our brand new talk series Women in Focus. Monika discussed her interest in contemporary art which paved her journey to becoming an author and curator, and she described her recent projects mostly dealing with the notion and modification of art in the digital age. Specifically, she was talking about the philosophy of new technologies, artificial intelligence, cyber culture and the topics of post-gender world, post-humanism and digisexuality.

About the speaker:

Monika Čejková is a curator of the next Fotograf Festival 2023: #Hypertension23 at National Gallery Prague and Ora et lege II at Broumov Monastery, 2023. Recent exhibitions include e.g., The Palace of Concrete Poetry at Writers House of Georgia in Tbilisi (2022), Neo-rising at Polansky Gallery in Prague (2022), Ora et lege I at Broumov Monastery (2021), Fantasy Finery at Berlínskej model Gallery in Prague (2021), Blasted Heathat AM 180 Gallery in Prague (2020). She studied History of Art at the Charles University in Prague. She is currently undergoing curatorial residency at the Delfina Foundation in London during which she plans to continue to expolore the theme of art in the (post) digital age and extend her research to art in relation to the new identity of the human being whose original form has been abstracted by digital space.

In 2020, Monika launched a long-term nomadic project titled "Ora et lege" – a critical dialogue between contemporary art and the teachings of the Benedictine order and the Catholic Church in general. This project is thematically focused on the work of contemporary visual artists with text and paved the way for another subject that Monika is currently exploring: the literary turn in visual art, which has brought to the fore various forms of authorial writing in relation to the overabundance of digital text.

 

More info:

www.monikacejkova.com

www.instagram.com/monika_cejkova

 

Czech Centre London:

https://london.czechcentres.cz/en/program

 

Recorded at the Czech Embassy Cinema in London on Wed 23 March 2023.

 

Rusalka Revealed: Dvořák’s operatic masterpiece

To celebrate a new edition of Antonín Dvořák’s beloved opera Rusalka and a new staging by the Royal Opera House, the editors Robert Simon and Jonáš Hájek discussed Dvořák‘s lyrical fairy tale, and their work on the score and Jaroslav Kvapil’s libretto with musicologist Nigel Simeone. Anna Blackmur, Principal 2nd Violin of the ROH orchestra, shared her personal experience of playing Dvořák’s music highlighting the challenges his seemingly easy music presents to players.

Robert Simon is an American librarian and musicologist specializing in Czech music. He is the author of Bohuslav Martinů: A Research and Information Guide and recently edited Martinů's one-act opera Ariane as part of the Bohuslav Martinů Complete Edition. Other editorial projects include the Wind Quintet of Pavel Haas and Antonín Dvořák's Slavonic Rhapsodies, Op. 45. Robert currently serves as Music and Arts Librarian at the College of the Holy Cross (Worcester, MA), and previously worked at the University of Notre Dame (South Bend, IN), where he launched their new Music Library in 2018.  

Jonáš Hájek  is a graduate of both the Prague Conservatory and the Institute of Musicology, Faculty of Arts, at the Charles University in Prague. He also spent a year at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Leipzig. Since 2007, he has been an editor (since 2017 the chief editor) of the Prague branch of the Bärenreiter publishing house, which specialises in Czech music. As an editor, he has prepared the Symphony "Asrael" op. 27 by Josef Suk ("Best Edition" prize from the Association of German Music Publishers 2019), Dvořák's Romance for Violin and Piano Op. 11 and Dvořák'sNocturne for String Orchestra Op. 40. He is the publishing supervisor of the new edition of Rusalka and the editor of its libretto.

Nigel Simeone is a writer and musician with special interests in Czech music and twentieth-century opera – both inspired by seeing Janáček’s Cunning Little Vixen during a school visit to Germany in 1971. He broadcasts regularly for BBC Radio 3 (Record Review, Opera on 3, BBC Proms) and has published extensively, including twelve books, two of them on Janáček: Janáček’s Works (1997, with John Tyrrell and Alena Němcová) and The Janáček Compendium (2019). Nigel has given lectures on aspects of Czech music for the London Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia, Wigmore Hall, BBC Proms and Welsh National Opera. He has written programme notes for the Royal Opera House, Scottish Opera, the BBC Proms, the LSO and the Salzburg Festival, and CD booklet notes for Deutsche Grammophon, Decca, Hyperion, Chandos and others.

Anna Blackmur studied as a Royal College of Music scholar under Maciej Rakowski, completing her BMus with first class honours (2010) and her Masters in Performance with Distinction (2012). In 2015, Anna was appointed Section Principal Second Violin with the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, having previously appeared as Assistant Concertmaster with the orchestra. She has also appeared as principal with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Orchestra of Welsh National Opera, and principal or coprincipal with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields (with whom she has toured extensively, directed by Joshua Bell, Sir Neville Marriner and Murray Perahia), and Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Anna is in constant demand as a recording artist, playing on multiple film and television sessions. She is also in high demand as a coach/mentor, and as a chamber musician, playing with, amongst others, the Covent Garden Soloists and Aronowitz Ensemble, and attending numerous international festivals such as the BBC Proms, and the Saronic and Aims Festivals as an artist in residence. 

In collaboration with The Dvořák Society and the Bärenreiter Music Publishing House.

Cover photo: Růžena Maturová as Rusalka, National Theatre in Prague, 1901, © National Museum – Czech Museum of Music

Recorded at the Czech Embassy Cinema in London on Wed 22 Feb 2023.

For more information please visit our website here: Czech Centre London Programme

Species survival: How AI can help conservation | Jonathan Ledgard | Royal Institution Talk

To protect nonhuman life on Earth, we need to give diverse life forms a digital focus. There is no digital platform for wild animals, trees, insects, and no way for them to make themselves known to us online. Join Jonathan Ledgard as he explores new AI solutions that can help represent nonhumans, aid their survival and demonstrate more completely to us their way of moving through the world. In this talk discover these interspecies services and how we can use fast evolving AI to help prevent existential risk to nonhuman life on Earth.

JONATHAN LEDGARD is a leading thinker on advanced technology, nature and risk. He is a fellow at the Prague Artificial Intelligence Centre and a Visiting Professor in AI and Nature at the Czech Technical University. Previously, as a director at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, he helped invent drone delivery of medicines in Africa. He is an advisor to companies, governments, and inter-governmental institutions. Separately, he spent 18 years as a foreign and war correspondent for The Economist newspaper, filing lead stories from over 60 countries – including a decade in Africa. As J.M. Ledgard, he is an acclaimed novelist. Submergence, a New York Times Book of the Year, was adapted for Hollywood by Wim Wenders. Giraffe, set in Communist Czechoslovakia, is also optioned by Hollywood.

Your chair for the evening is HENRY MANCE, chief features writer at the Financial Times. He has reported on a variety of environmental and animal welfare issues, and is author of 'How to Love Animals', a book of the year for The Times, Daily Telegraph, and The Guardian. Before joining the FT in 2010, he worked at a biodiversity think tank in Colombia.

 

Species survival: How AI can help conservation talk happened on TUE 22 NOV 2022 at The Royal Institution, London.