A Moment of the POEtry by the Prague Chamber Ballet

"The substance I chose is de facto a horror. And horror is always about time. You know that this or that thing will happen, the question is when? I transposed the concept of Poe's poem "Raven" into a black grotesque, a comic book, a rather absurd deadpan humor, but with a certain degree of "poetry" still in it," Marek Svobodník says about his choreography.

Marek Svobodník graduated from the Dance Conservatory in Brno, after which he undertook several engagements: National Moravian-Silesian Theatre 2003-06, Laterna Magika 2006-08, National Theatre in Brno 2008-12 and since 2012 ballet National Theatre in Prague. During his dance career he collaborated on a number of projects with Pro-ART company, Pas de theater Ostrava, Department of Alternative and Puppet Theatre at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague and DEKKADANCERS, a dance company lead by Marek Svobodník together with Ondřej Vinklát and Štěpán Pechar since 2015.

As a choreographer, he created or co-created the performance of Devilstory (Čertstory in Czech, National Theatre Brno - Reduta, 2012), Paintings (National Theatre Brno - Kolowrat, 2014), Catch27 (National Theatre Brno, 2014), POEzie (Prague Chamber Ballet, 2016). At present, he creates choreographies mainly for DEKKADANCERS.

Prague Chamber Ballet is the largest Czech independent professional dance ensemble. The beginnings date back to 1964, when Luboš Ogoun, Pavel Šmok and Vladimír Vašut founded the original Studio Balet Praha. Their repertoire comprised mainly choreographies by Pavel Šmok, but also guest Czech and foreign choreographers (P. Zuska, J. Kylián, L. Vaculík, R. North, Ch. Bruce, P. Delacroix, P. de Ruiter, J. Hackman, J , Kodet, and others).

Throughout almost half a century, the ensemble has successfully developped into an important representative of the current dance art of the Czech Republic abroad (Israel, Lebanon, India, China, Australia, Cuba, Taiwan, Germany, Luxembourg , Thailand, Georgia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, South Korea, Poland) and has won a number of important awards (The Czech Literary Fund Award for Best Choreography, Thálie Prizes for Outstanding Stage Performances, Dance Association Awards, etc.).