Mančuka, Ján (CS)
Takkelloftet, The Opera
Ján Mančuka
Born1972 in Bratislava, Slovakia
Lives in Prague and Berlin
During an extended stay in Copenhagen Ján Mančuška crafted a theatre performance which, as its title, Reverse Play, indicates, is a drama performed in reverse.
Reverse Play is a performance that takes place in a theatre (hence the term 'theatre performance'), in which actors and dancers perform the piece back to front while another actor, seated in the front row among the audience, narrates the storyline in sequence. On stage, everything runs counter to narrative logic, even breathing and walking. Further, despite the fact that in the play's progression cause and effect are reversed, there is perfect congruence between the actions performed on stage and the incidents in the narrative. All the sound comes from the narrator, while the play itself is performed in silence, with concentration focused upon the bodily movements performed in reverse.
As the play progresses, it becomes increasingly apparent that the action on stage
and the narrator's story are out of sync. One of the points at which the key thrust of the play comes through is at the crucial moment where the narrator is recounting an episode involving a thief pickpocketing a wallet, and a character on stage is seen slipping a wallet into someone else's pocket. Mančuška's interest is in the ways in which stories are told, here using forward and backward-moving narratives to disentangle the essence of - and perhaps also the contingencies surrounding - ethically charged situations.
Whether the genre be installation, film or performance, Mančuška's artistic themes invariably have an existential thrust. Typically, they focus around an individual faced with an ethical choice, in the context of a labyrinthine storyline presenting multiple possible plot developments and avenues of interpretation. It is in particular the individual's dilemmas, complicated by a range of contingencies, that combine to create the tragicomic universe that defines Ján Mančuška's art. -SHO
Lives in Prague and Berlin
During an extended stay in Copenhagen Ján Mančuška crafted a theatre performance which, as its title, Reverse Play, indicates, is a drama performed in reverse.
Reverse Play is a performance that takes place in a theatre (hence the term 'theatre performance'), in which actors and dancers perform the piece back to front while another actor, seated in the front row among the audience, narrates the storyline in sequence. On stage, everything runs counter to narrative logic, even breathing and walking. Further, despite the fact that in the play's progression cause and effect are reversed, there is perfect congruence between the actions performed on stage and the incidents in the narrative. All the sound comes from the narrator, while the play itself is performed in silence, with concentration focused upon the bodily movements performed in reverse.
As the play progresses, it becomes increasingly apparent that the action on stage
and the narrator's story are out of sync. One of the points at which the key thrust of the play comes through is at the crucial moment where the narrator is recounting an episode involving a thief pickpocketing a wallet, and a character on stage is seen slipping a wallet into someone else's pocket. Mančuška's interest is in the ways in which stories are told, here using forward and backward-moving narratives to disentangle the essence of - and perhaps also the contingencies surrounding - ethically charged situations.
Whether the genre be installation, film or performance, Mančuška's artistic themes invariably have an existential thrust. Typically, they focus around an individual faced with an ethical choice, in the context of a labyrinthine storyline presenting multiple possible plot developments and avenues of interpretation. It is in particular the individual's dilemmas, complicated by a range of contingencies, that combine to create the tragicomic universe that defines Ján Mančuška's art. -SHO