Arts
The Tatu duo has taken much of the world by storm and the Czech Republic appears to be no exception. Teenagers Jelena and Julie, who are probably the most eminent and promising project in Russian youth pop music, have been topping the charts first with "I've lost my mind" and now with "All the things she said" around the world and certainly have a good bulk of fans in the Czech Republic. The group's tour of the country finalised with the last of five concerts in Prague on Tuesday and concert organisers say over 25,000 tickets were sold.
Arts news
The Tatu duo has taken much of the world by storm and the Czech Republic appears to be no exception. Teenagers Jelena and Julie, who are probably the most eminent and promising project in Russian youth pop music, have been topping the charts first with "I've lost my mind" and now with "All the things she said" around the world and certainly have a good bulk of fans in the Czech Republic. The group's tour of the country finalised with the last of five concerts in Prague on Tuesday and concert organisers say over 25,000 tickets were sold.
On Thursday, the Czech Academy of Popular Music announced the nominees for its annual Andel or Angel awards. This year, there will be 13 categories. The nominees for Best Female Singer are Helena Vondrackova, Katerina Winterova and Iva Bittova. Petr Muk, Krystof Michal and Daniel Barta will be contesting for the Best Male Singer award. The Czech bands with the most nominations are Krystof, Support Lesbiens and Lucie. This year's award ceremony will be held on March 20.
The Volvox Globator publishing house has released a new dictionary of foreign actors from the end of the 20th century. On close to 1500 pages, in two collections, author Milos Fikejz introduces Czechs to the popular and noteworthy actors abroad with a brief look into their life and work, especially focusing on the significance of their contributions to world cinematography. Mr Fikejz, who has explored the National Film Archives for over twenty years has already produced a similar but less detailed book called Contemporary Foreign Actors, in 1996.
Prague's Naprstek Museum of Asian, African, and American cultures, which is part of the National Museum and is located on Betlemske namesti or Bethlehem Square is currently holding an exhibition of Haiga - a traditional Japanese art form composed of painting and haiku poetry. The exhibits from the 18th and 19th centuries are all works by Takebe Socho whose secret to the Haiku-painting tradition lay in just a few simple and relaxed brushstrokes and minimal colour. According to curator Alice Kraemerova, the exhibition space has been re-decorated into a traditional Japanese room. Haiga are presented in several different formats, including hanging scrolls, hand scrolls, and folding screens. Hanging scrolls, suspended on cords, are an especially popular format in Japanese art. The exhibits are on loan from a private collector in Japan and will be on display in Prague until April 21.
Technical Museum exhibits collection of 7000 toys
We now move onto an exhibition that displays a rather unusual trend that is gaining popularity here in the Czech Republic. Many of you - especially those of you with children - are probably familiar with the Kinder Surprise eggs - the chocolate eggs that contain toys. While children love them, naturally for two reasons - the chocolate and the toy, - an unusually large number of adults is also taking a liking to them, collecting the eggs' untraditional fillings. While many can boast a collection of hundreds of Kinder Surprise toys there is one man who most probably holds the record with several thousand pieces. They will be on display at the Technical Museum from February 22nd to March 23rd. I spoke to the museum's Jiri Zeman:
"There are two Hungarian brothers, Martin and Peter Faust and Martin started this collection in 1988 and continued collecting the small things until today and has collected about 7000 small toys, found in these eggs. These are the toys which will be on display."
What exactly is the exhibition going to look like. How big will it be and what about the interior decoration?
"The exhibition is situated on the second floor of the National Technical Museum in Prague and the toys are shown in huge eggs which are actually the same as the small ones which the people buy in the shops but are made of chocolate. In these eggs you find windows in which the small toys are displayed."
Why do you think was the National Technical Museum chosen to house the exhibition?
"The main reason might be that the museum is quite popular among young people and they also know that this museum is often visited by schools that are not only from Prague but all around the country and a lot of tourists also come to this museum."
How many children are you hoping to attract?
"As many children as possible. We are expecting about 50,000."
How popular are the Kinder Surprise eggs among children here in the Czech Republic?
"I think they are very popular. I don't know about the rest of Europe but they are very popular in the Czech Republic."
Would you say that there is a growing trend among adults as well, who buy the eggs to collect the toys?
"We have been told that there are quite a lot of adults who are collecting the toys from the eggs, especially small cars and ships. The figures are more popular among children but the cars and aeroplanes are collected by adults."
When Ferrero approached you and told you that they would like to open this exhibition here at the Technical Museum, were you sceptical? Did you think that it's not going to attract enough people?
"We weren't sceptical but we were surprised. On the other hand, the museum has a very big collection of many varieties. We have aeroplanes, cars, locomotives and bicycles but we also have many other things like architecture and design. I think this has a little bit to do with design and we also have a collection of old toys so it's not so far from the Technical Museum as it might seem at first glance."
