Marie Kinsky makes Žďár nad Sázavou into dance venue
Marie Kinsky, a French dancer, teacher and graduate of the French Conservatory of Classical Dance, has moved to Prague back in 1997, and since then, she has been involved in all kinds of dance activities. She established the first Centre for Choreographic Development in the Czech Republic and along with her husband, she has been involved in the reconstruction of the Kinsky family estate in Žďár nad Sázavou. This weekend, the beautiful baroque castle will be hosting the fourth edition of KoresponDance, a festival of dance and physical theatre.
“We started the very first activities back in 1999, but at the time it wasn’t the Centre for Choreographic Development. We built up the activities of our centre progressively, following the needs in the field.
So what exactly do you offer?
“We offer international seminars, choreography coaching and residencies with coaching. We offer workshop analysing choreographic work both for critics and choreographers. “We offer residencies to artists, where they can do basically any research they want. We don’t ask them for any result, except to share something with the audience, a discussion, an exhibition, and so on.
“We are also producing their work. So we go from research and production to presenting the works. At the same time we are inviting people from abroad with whom they are collaborating. We want the audience to find out more about the artistic process itself.
“So to sum it up, we do workshops and seminars, we are producing pieces, promoting performances as well as organizing festivals. But we are not a production house. Our aim is really to help artists, teachers, and critics to develop.”
“I was a teacher for thirty years but because of the amount of work this year, I am not teaching right now. But I would love to go back to it, because I really like it a lot.”
In your classes, you have focused on the so-called Feldenkrais method. Can you tell me more about it?
“I am using the Feldenkrais method mainly with professional dancers. It’s something that prepares the body, the nervous system and the mind, for a particular task.
“It’s something very delicate and seems to be nothing when you practice, but it has a huge impact on the nervous system. It enriches your vocabulary as a dancer and it also helps you to use your own body the best way you can at the given moment.
Based on your experience as a teacher and dancer, what would you say makes a good dancer?
“What makes a good dancer? That’s a very interesting question. I guess that what is important is to reach an understanding of something that you can’t reach with words.
Three years ago you established a dance festival called KoresponDance, which takes place in Žďár nad Sázavou, in the castle owned by the Kinsky family. How has the festival developed over the years?
“It has made a huge development. This year we won’t have just a one-day event but a three-day programme. But we still stick to the same philosophy. We invite highly qualified people from the Czech Republic and abroad, but we want them to collaborate with the local people from Žďár, because we want to maintain a spirit of collaboration.
So the event is really joyful, it takes place outside, and we want to keep the warm atmosphere and at the same time maintain the high standard of the performances.”
What are some of the highlights of this year’s festival?
“This time he comes with a performance involving another technical machine, which is about 16 metres high, dancing with three street dancers. This machine can really dance and it is absolutely incredible. The communication between the dancers and the machine is absolutely great.”
“We are also inviting the Czech Republic’s Forman brothers with their Obludárium, which is very baroque in its spirit. It includes puppet theatre, dance and a circus. They have a very special way of interacting with the audience and it’s a beautiful performance for the whole family. It’s like a dream world.
“She will dance with six well-known Czech dancers and six amateurs. So it will be a performance for twelve people, based on a baroque dance score that will be presented in our new museum in Žďár. So they will build a contemporary performance based on this old score and it will be tremendously interesting.”
Is the festival taking place only within the castle or are there also other venues?
“One of the performances will take place in the very industrial part of the town, in front of a sports stadium and a skate park, with break dancers and clowns, and it is living in this part of town in a poetic way.
“Some of the events will also take place in a leisure park which was opened in Žďár last year, and which is a real success for the town. So we are really glad that we can cooperate with the town on this kind of events, both on our estate and in the town.”
“We have a very ambitious plan with my husband, not only for the estate but also for the town itself. We would like to turn the estate into a sort of the cultural centre. It’s about explaining the history of the estate, what you can see here and why it is like that.
“Over the past three years we have had up to twenty companies who had residencies in Žďár, mainly dancers, but also musicians and poets. So we have a complex programme linked to the estate and the festival and we want to focus on activities with people and for people.”
