CELEBRATION OF FREEDOM – 25 YEARS OF DEMOCRACY
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 7PM
Czech Center/Bohemian National Hall
321 East 73rd Street
NY 10021 New York
Free admission
Velvet Revolution
FRAGILE FREEDOM
A multi-genre, multimedia performance dedicated to the legacy of Václav Havel and twenty five years of freedom, reimagining the magical number 89 in music, dance, film, photography and literature. The event will feature 12 contemporary music composers, 13 American musicians, Czech and American dancers and actors together with leading proponents of political and cultural life from both countries. Fragments of forbidden theater plays, texts and essays, created during the time of oppression, will be introduced during this event. This will include Vaclav Havel, one of the most important figures of dissent, a human right advocate and playwright, who in 1989 became president.
1989: Prague
The work of Eva Kantůrková, the female proponent of forbidden literature who was imprisoned for her subversion of communist ideas, will also be shown–together with staged essays of philosopher Pavel Tigrid and other important texts that contributed to the fight for freedom performed live. The overview of historic events forming the free Czech Republic will be seen through the eyes of photographers and cinematographers. A strong Czech tradition, puppet theater, will be used to introduce the fall of the iron curtain with a witty point of view, followed by fragments of the essential leitmotifs of Dvořák’s New World Symphony, whose original manuscripts return to US for the first time and will be heard in a special arrangement.
