shYfted wOrld

world shifted by 4*8+Y≠?

Take a look into worlds where the boundaries between people, plants, animals and things are blurred. Maybe you will recognise something from your life here. Maybe you will encounter a new kind of life. And maybe you will find your own symbiont, your own partner living outside of human reality.

The performative installation shYfted wOrld presents an original world of post-human beings and always reacts to the space in which it is presented. Its distinctive artistic element is the larval masks by Magdaléna Vrábová (concept, creation) and Lukáš Karásek (concept). These are white, oversized heads in the shape of prisms and elongated ellipsoids. They only lend the beings basic character traits and do not develop them in detail. It creates space for the audience's imagination, which can complement and interpret the beings for themselves. The action of each being is complemented by the gentle ambient music of Lukáš Palán and the lighting design by Zuzana Režná.

4*8+Y≠? show at 4+4 Days in Motion festival / 13th October 2023 / photo: audience

shYfted wOrld in the Convent of St. Agnes (Prague)

Strange beings inhabited the Convent of St. Agnes of Bohemia. Their bodies resemble humans, but their heads take on various geometric shapes. Each being dwells a symbiote – an animal or a plant that moves them further in time and space. How far from our world?

In the site-specific performative installation shYfted wOrld, you can meet a researcher mantis, conjoined twins studying a herbarium, a restless scribe or meditating gardeners. The boundaries between the human world of the monastery and the non-human worlds of plants, animals and things are blurred here. And historical monastic life is combined here with futuristic post-human worlds.

In this case, the installation responds to the garden and the historical premises of the Convent of St. Agnes of Bohemia, which will be inscribed in the installation as an anachronistic memory of contemplative life (convent) associated with the search for a harmonious relationship between human and nature (garden). The historical temporality and spatial arrangement of the monastery and its gardens intersect in the installation with the temporality created by the individual beings around themselves. Through adaptation, the entire installation will acquire the dimension of non-human monastic life, a de-anthropocentrized monastic order.

shYfted wOrld 14th at 19.00 Prague, Convent of St. Agnes (National Gallery)

Concept: Florent Golfier-Brechmann, Marie Gourdain, Lukáš Karásek, Zuzana Režná
Performers: Aneta Bočková, Milada Čápová, Ester Denemarková Florent Golfier-Brechmann, Lukáš Karásek, Radana Klingerová, Margaryta Lebedzeva, Marek Menšík, Hana Polanská, Lukáš Palán

Music: Lukáš Palán
Masks: Magdaléna Vrábová
Costumes and scenographic adaptation: Martina Stieglerová

Technical cooperation: Štěpán Hejzlar, Matěj Šenkyřík
Produced by: tYhle
Production: Ludmila Šindlerová, Anton Korenči
Co-produced by: DanceConnected, National Gallery Prague

Acknowledgements: Festival 4+4 Days in Motion

Shows: 14th June 2025 at 7pm

Support

The project was created thanks to financial support from the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and the City of Prague, in cooperation with DanceConnected and National Gallery Prague.

4*8+Y≠?

site-specific premiere for the 4+4 Days in Motion festival

Several strange creatures have settled in an abandoned functionalist House of Art Industry on Národní třída in Prague. Although their bodies look like humans, their heads have various geometric shapes, and their movements also do not quite resemble the movements of humans. Each of these beings has a symbiont within itself, an inner animal or a plant that influences its life.

In the abandoned building of the functionalist palace, which was formerly the seat of the Centre of Folk Art and the centre of modern everyday design, you will be able to experience the border that unites and divides the human and non-human worlds. You will be invited to investigate worlds; those feel both familiar and foreign. And maybe you will find your own symbiote, a partner living outside of human reality.

The theatrical installation left complete freedom to passing visitors, as the fixed points were obvious. The less masks did, the more eloquent and fascinating they were. The paradox of the relationship between stillness, stylisation and space has functionally evoked the desired atmosphere. The exhibition of weirdos, referring to an even stranger time, revived a place killed by humans. A completely unpretentious performance, pleasantly stimulating the imagination, stirred up the waters of compacted testimonies.

4+4 dny v pohybu aneb Sondy do paměti - Taneční aktuality, 29th October 2023, Hana Strejčková

Concept: Florent Golfier-Brechmann, Marie Gourdain, Lukáš Karásek, Zuzana Režná
Performers: Aneta Bočková, Florent Golfier-Brechmann, Marie Gourdain, Alžběta Jelínková, Lukáš Karásek, Radka Klingerová, Petr Kytka, Marek Menšík, Lukáš Palán, Hana Polanská, Lara Rajnišová, Zuzana Režná

Music: Lukáš Palán
Masks, costumes and scenography: Magdaléna Vrábová

Technical cooperation: Štěpán Hejzlar, Matouš Ondra, Matěj Šenkyřík, Marek Bozděch
Produced by: tYhle
Production: Ludmila Šindlerová
Production assistant: Romana Packová
Co-produced by: 4+4 Days in Motion

Acknowledgements: Divadlo X10, Studio ALTA, Truhlárna, František Novotný, Markéta Černá, Jakub Douda, Šindlerovi, Kristína Grežďová, Daniel Tesař, František Dámec

Shows: 12th and 13th October 2023

Support

The project was created financially supported by the EU through the National Recovery Plan, by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and the State Cultural Fund of the Czech Republic. Project was financially supported by festival 4+4 Days in Motion.