Czech Center New York collaborates with JACK to present a performance duet by luminous New York-based singer/performer Helga Davis (Einstein on the Beach, 2014) and Jiří Bartovanec, a Czech dancer & choreographer known for his work with the Sasha Waltz Dance Company. This transatlantic collaboration commissioned by Czech Center NY is the third in a series of four cross-cultural world premieres, called Prague-New York Effects, and will have performances also in Washington, D.C. and the Czech Republic.

Tickets: $15 in advance, $20 at the door (cash only)

Lighting Design: Tuce Yasak

Jiří Bartovanec is a dancer and choreographer who has worked with Sasha Waltz since 2003, having danced in noBody, insideout, Dido & Aeneas, Medea, Jagden und Formen, Continu, and Matsukaze and having taken part in Waltz´s Dialoge projects. His first solo When my mind is rocking, i know it´s 7 was presented by Sasha Waltz & Guests. His solo Aneho premiered in Ludwigshafen, 2010. He participated in MusicTANZ-Carmen, a 2012 educational project of Berliner Philharmoniker. Bartovanec danced in Waltz´s Sacre and L´Apres-midi d´un faune, and in 2014 exhibition Sasha Waltz Instalations Objects. His work GLOBE (2014) was nominated for Czech Dance Platform. In 2015 he worked with MAMAJEANGKIM in Seoul giving workshops. He has worked with Spitfire Company for Sniper´s Lake. He collaborated in Berlin with Farhad Payar and Yasmine Kalifa on Jack & Harun. In 2004 he danced in Mindgarden by Jochen Roller and in Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda and in the dance film Circulatura by Mirella Weingarten. He participated in Mayim Mayim and danced in Human Writes by William Forsythe and developed a site- specific project with Berliner Charite Raumausloten. His work Entropy premiered at Czech Center NY and the Moving Sound Festival. His latest choreographed work, Lessons of Touch, was created in collaboration with Tantehorse in Prague. Bartovanec teaches at Duncan Centre Conservatorium in Prague.
 
Helga Davis has starred in the international tour of Einstein on the Beach, begun in 2014; Robert Wilson describes her as “a united whole, with spellbinding inner power and strength.” She also starred in Wilson’s The Temptation of St. Anthony, with libretto and score by Bernice Johnson Reagon of Sweet Honey in the Rock, Milton, by Katie Pearl and Lisa D’amour, and Elsewhere, with cellist Maya Beiser with music by Missy Mazolli. In 2011 Davis served as a “Sweet Peach” in Soho Rep’s production of Jomama Jones, Radiate, a production that made New Yorker theatre critic Hilton Als’ top ten list. She is the recipient of the BRIC Fireworks grant and just completed her first full-length theatre piece, Cassandra. Davis may also be heard on the new VIA Records release, Oceanic Verses, a multi-media opera work written for her by composer Paola Prestini. In Fall 2015 Davis will perform in her fifth Next Wave festival at BAM in Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond) and Andrew Ondrejcak’s You Us We All. She hosts a radio program on WQXR’s Q2, and was awarded an ASCAP Multimedia Award for hosting 24:33: twenty-four hours and thirty-three minutes of the playful and playable John Cage.

This project is supported by Petr Gandalovič Czech Ambassador to the United States and Andrew Schapiro United States Ambassador U.S. Embassy, Czech Republic.

ABOVE: Photo of Jiří Bartovanec by Jonas Hidalgo. Photo of Helga Davis © Michal Hancovsky.