Ultra - minimal- ballet presents
Dance docudrama, site-specific
Premiere: 12.10. 2025
Repeats: 29.10., 12.11. and 14.12. 2025
Cinema 64 U Hradeb always from 20:00.
Vlasta - performed by Ultra-minimal-ballet (UMB) is a theatre based on a real life story. The site-specific dance docudrama takes place in the magical space of the not-quite-restored Cinema 64 U Hradeb, which suits the theme perfectly. Three dancers, one actor and projections bring images from the extraordinary life of Vlasta. Vlasta, whose mother jumped out of the window, who was raped as a child, who was wrongly accused, who spent her youth in a concentration camp with Jesenská, Jabůrková and Jirsíková, who was rejected by her own father after the war, who fell in love, who got divorced, who also jumped from windows, who swallowed diazepam, who became a terror to her neighbours, who heard everywhere, everywhere, Josin from the swamp...
It uses texts of contemporary official documents, real letters and a recording of an interview with the daughter of the title character. Time does not have to pass linearly here, „high“ and „low“ art are mixed. Situations can be viewed from different perspectives and can appear tragicomic.
For Vlasta, even for the observer, it is often not entirely clear whose mother, daughter, husband, son, father, tormentor... or who she is to herself.
The themes are very contemporary, in fact timeless, although they are shown to us through a past time, so that we can look at things from „elsewhere“. Which is the aim and the intention - to let the viewer look at themselves „from elsewhere“. To offer the outside view and the resulting tolerance as a solution to one's own and others' pains. And that's why we don't find any visual attributes of the time. Everything is happening now...in many places in the world today...still...unfortunately.
Persons and cast:
Vlasta the Younger........Katerina Iliina (dance role)
Vlasta starší......... Alena Pešková (dance role)
He younger ............ Michal Kováč (dance role)
On older ............ Martin Němec (acting role)
Stagers:
Script, direction, choreography by Alena Pešková
Music by Michal Vejskal
Scene: Richard Pešek j.r.
Costumes by Pavla Michálková
Collaboration on research: Vlasta Vindušková
Dramaturgical collaboration: Barbora Truksová
Production by Martina Diblikova
About the life of Vlasta
I learned about Vlasta's life from Vlasta. This second Vlasta was the daughter of the first Vlasta and my
assistant at the time when I was „head“ of the ballet in Liberec. The other Vlasta once apologized to me that
she was late because her mom died. „And you know what her last words were?...‘Put that yogurt away.
Fuckin’...you know she had it rough.“ And so I listened...
Vlasta was born in 1925. She grew up as an only child. When Vlasta was a little girl, her
mom committed suicide by jumping out of the window - probably she couldn't handle her addiction to pralines - note
bene on alcohol - she worked in a Prague praline factory. From then on, Vlasta lived alone with her
by her daddy and she was learning to be a seamstress. One day Vlasta was met in the corridor by a neighbour - the owner of the house.
He liked Vlasta, liked her so much that he raped her in the corridor. Vlasta was fifteen and a half at the time.
The neighbor became afraid. He became afraid that Vlasta would talk about him to someone. He was so scared that he
decided to get rid of Vlasta. He put leaflets with communist texts in her briefcase and called the Gestapo. Gestapo
came, saw and took Vlasta away. Vlasta's father distanced himself from Vlasta's actions. Vlasta's daddy is no longer
he wanted nothing to do with Vlasta. Vlasta was taken to Pankrác. There Vlasta waited for her
for at least 16 years so they can take her somewhere else. Actually, Vlasta was looking forward to it. Things were bad at Pankrác - she was often beaten - so she was looking forward to wherever they would take her, it would be better. Vlasta was really taken away. The train
heading for Dresden, but he didn't stop there... he stopped in Ravensbrück. In the concentration camp.Rivers
Ravensbrück was not much better, but Vlasta was lucky, she could sew and so she could repair
the costumes of SS wives and to match the coats of prisoners, which might have hidden jewels or
money. It happened many times that Vlasta was „borrowed“ by an SS man during his work...
he zipped up the fly and sent her back to work. This is also where Vlasta met the famous 3 x J -
Jesenská, Jabůrková and Jirsíková. Two of them died in Ravensbrück, but Jirsíková survived.
When famine struck, relatives were able to send food parcels to the prisoners. And then it happened that a hidden
in bread, Mácha's May also arrived at the stages. So there was reciting, dancing, theatre...
Ravensbrück was liberated by the Russians, Vlasta remained for a long time. She had to take care of those who
couldn't walk or were dying. When Jirsíková said goodbye to her, she told Vlasta that when her daughter was born,
she can call her and she can make her daughter a ballerina. After Vlasta had taken care of the necessities, she set out
to look for Daddy. She found him in a cottage in Litnia. Papa had remarried and had more children. For
There was no room for Vlasta in the cottage... And so Vlasta wandered the countryside, repairing clothes in cottages
for a piece of bread or an egg... until she arrived in Prague. Here Vlasta applied to the committee for former
a prisoner and fell in love with it. He spent the war in Sachsenhausen for wanting to go to fight in Spain.
They got married and took a place in Liberec. They had a daughter together, then they divorced, but Vlasta found out that
is expecting Vlasta... and so the divorce sit worked. They both had tuberculosis, they both had pain, pain... Vlasta heard
Voices. Vlasta did not want to live and so - like her mother - she often jumped out of the window while her small children
crying and screaming behind locked doors. Little Vlasta didn't want the big
Vlasta called Jirsíková, even though she really wanted to be a ballerina. Vlasta had to take diazepam,
a lot of diazepam... and so when her husband died, or later one of her daughters, she just felt a strange
relief. Vlasta frightened the neighbours. Vlasta dismantled the gas stove because she could hear Jožin from the swamp in it.
Vlasta heard Jožin everywhere. Vlasta died when she was ninety years old. Her last words were: „The
Stick the yogurt up your ass already.“
V.V. + A. P.
64 U Hradeb
In the autumn of 2025, this newly (not completely) renovated multicultural space will host the first
its conclusion, they will present full-length projects. The Vlasta project will therefore be one of the first to
the audience can see.
The stage area will still remain partly in the process of modification and this state of „work in progress“ great
suits the theme and form of the project Vlasta
THE PROJECT WAS SUPPORTED
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