Radoslav Piovarči, Paulína Šmatláková: CHARON
Dance performance CHARON pictures a relationship between a ferryman Charon and a soul, representing an entity of a universal human being. The character of Charon has been chosen as a personification of human qualities in their self-reflection, while the soul represents a human on her way of transformation and knowledge through a journey into and from the underworld. According to different philosophy questions, the soul is searching for its place not only in our known world, but also in worlds that are distant to us and therefore often obscure to us. Thanks to its companion, Charon, the soul becomes aware and transforms into a purer form. Its journey and knowledge become a mirror of us all, of our deeds. Mythology, as a collection of stories created to explain the ambient world, is the source of timeless learning, pointing at the immutable substance of a human soul regardless the development of human civilizations over thousands of years. Authors also try to ask the audience some provocative questions about who can be a hero in contemporary world, how to become such a hero, what journey needs to be undertaken and what form will the myth of our future have.
“Greek mythology is not an obvious source material for Slovak contemporary dance creators, but Charon proves that even today it is possible to contemplate eternal, archetypal questions such as death, transformation of existence into another form, the search for the meaning and essence of life in a qualitative and ever new way. The performance is exceptional also because of its excellent dancers Rado Piovarči and Paulina Šmatláková and the dramaturgical input of Alexandra Rychtarčíková, who is well versed in the culture of ancient Greece.”
(Petra Fornayová)
Choreography, concept and performer: Radoslav Piovarči
Co-creator and performer: Paulína Šmatláková
Music and performer: Michal Paľko
Lighting design: Ján Čief
Costumes: Martin Kotúček
Dramaturgy and professional consultation: Alexandra Rychtarčíková
Radoslav Piovarči (creator, choreographer, performer) – Dancer, performer, tutor, choreographer, and stage director, Radoslav Piovarči has been part of professional scene of contemporary dance and physical theatre for nearly a decade. Throughout the time he collaborated with a number of leading names, theatres and ensemble, such as Lenka Vagnerová & Company, Artyci Dance Company, Theatre elledanse, Lucia Holinová, Staatstheatre Kassel, Štúdio tanca dance theatre, Total Brutal Company, VerTeDance, Jana Burkiewicz, Virus Theatre. His hitherto collaborative portfolio includes over thirty different dance projects, films and advertisements. As choreographer and director he made, since 2010 the productions of Munnie (Enfin seuls 2010), HOLD YOUR BREATH (Theatre elledanse 2012), SET UP (Theatre elledanse 2013), DUST (Liptov Dance Theatre 2015), and the modular dance project MIMO (Culture centre Dunaj 2017).
Paulína Šmatláková comes from Bratislava. Her studies began at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava and continued at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London. She graduated with a Bachelor degree in Contemporary Dance in 2016. During freelancing in London Paulína worked as a choreographer and a performer in an interdisciplinary group devised physical theatre project, Lingering Games, directed by Cao Cong and performed in Taipei. Between 2017 and 2020 she was a fulltime dancer with Blackbox Dance Company in Denmark. Here she worked with choreographers such as Ben Wright, Jason Mabana, Marie Brolin-Tani and Tina Tarpgaard, touring nationally and internationally (Sweden, Greenland, Tanzania, South Korea, Rwanda). In September 2020 she took part in making a dance film in Norway with Compassion2Dance Company, choreographed by Tendai Makurumbandi. Since October 2020 Paulína is a freelance dancer based in Bratislava, where she also teaches contemporary dance classes.