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Adam Dragun: ALEX - 2. Premiéra
Adam Dragun: ALEX - 2nd Premiere
Event by: A4 - priestor súčasnej kultúry, Batyskaf
Location: A4 - Zero Space, Karpatská 2, Bratislava - Staré Mesto
Tickets: Get tickets
Theatres, Art Exhibitions
About event
Adam Dragun dedicated more than two years of his life to work on the ALEX performance.
It started inconspicuously: in August 2023, he received a message from a person with whom he had never written before. It was an acquaintance of his, an employee of a prestigious Slovak theater institution, who began to seriously doubt the meaning of his work and life in general. He asked Adam to help him come up with a solo performance in which he would find this meaning again.
Adam Dragun understood that if he helped his friend - an employee of a prestigious Slovak theater institution - to rediscover the meaning of life, he could subsequently open the way for him to the career of a great theater director and author, which he had dreamed of since he was thirteen.
Thus begins a process in which the boundaries are gradually blurred. between creation and amateur psychoanalysis. The participants are forced to bare themselves to the bone, and in an effort to create a joint work and rediscover the meaning of their work, they must delve into their most secret childhood dreams and fears. To make sure Dragun doesn't miss anything, he records the entire process on video and then obsessively searches for clues in the recordings that could help him create the performance.
This video material, together with reconstructions, screen recordings and live action, becomes the basis for the piece ALEX – a work that is both a documentation of the process and a radical reflection on the very meaning of the performance. His backdrops are DIY imitations of offices, children's rooms and a theater that the fascists are trying to occupy.
"Now I finally understand, Kosťa, that in our work it is not fame that is important, but the strength to endure."
(Anton Pavlovič Čechov)
"Artistic performance has always been closely connected with researching and experimenting with ways of working, collaborating and creating a work of art."
(Bojana Kunst / Gabriele Klein)
"As soon as I finish a project, it's a complete nightmare for me. But my whole way of writing is actually built on obsessive rituals that I use to avoid writing itself."
(Slavoj Žižek)
Creative team:
Adam Dragun: director/screenplay/concept/performance
Klára Dolník: scenography/concept/dramaturgy
Anna Tóthová: performance
Eva Gabrižová: video/live-cam
Roman Poliak: dramaturgy
Ondrej Mankovecký: projection/light
Mário Drgoňa: dramaturgy/idea
Oliver Dragun: music/sound design
Ivo Dobrovodský: Production
Barbora Maximová: Production
Lukáš Klíma: Lightdesign
Petra Štefancová: Editing
Vanda Kotrády: Poster
Karina Golisová: Photo
Alexandra Gašparovičová: PR
Dramaturgical consultations: Sodja Zupancic Lotker, Wojtek Ziemilski, Olga Ciężkowska, Branislava Kuburović
Special thanks to: Gabika Tóthová, Róbert Tóth, Mikuláš Bado, Michal Tresa, Patrik Nagy.
Performance ALEX is produced by the Bratislava Project Bathyscaphe. Prague's multi-functional cultural space ARCHA+ participates in the project as a co-production. It was supported from public sources by the Fund for the Support of Art and the Foundation of the City of Bratislava. 2025 takes place at 7:00 p.m.
It started inconspicuously: in August 2023, he received a message from a person with whom he had never written before. It was an acquaintance of his, an employee of a prestigious Slovak theater institution, who began to seriously doubt the meaning of his work and life in general. He asked Adam to help him come up with a solo performance in which he would find this meaning again.
Adam Dragun understood that if he helped his friend - an employee of a prestigious Slovak theater institution - to rediscover the meaning of life, he could subsequently open the way for him to the career of a great theater director and author, which he had dreamed of since he was thirteen.
Thus begins a process in which the boundaries are gradually blurred. between creation and amateur psychoanalysis. The participants are forced to bare themselves to the bone, and in an effort to create a joint work and rediscover the meaning of their work, they must delve into their most secret childhood dreams and fears. To make sure Dragun doesn't miss anything, he records the entire process on video and then obsessively searches for clues in the recordings that could help him create the performance.
This video material, together with reconstructions, screen recordings and live action, becomes the basis for the piece ALEX – a work that is both a documentation of the process and a radical reflection on the very meaning of the performance. His backdrops are DIY imitations of offices, children's rooms and a theater that the fascists are trying to occupy.
"Now I finally understand, Kosťa, that in our work it is not fame that is important, but the strength to endure."
(Anton Pavlovič Čechov)
"Artistic performance has always been closely connected with researching and experimenting with ways of working, collaborating and creating a work of art."
(Bojana Kunst / Gabriele Klein)
"As soon as I finish a project, it's a complete nightmare for me. But my whole way of writing is actually built on obsessive rituals that I use to avoid writing itself."
(Slavoj Žižek)
Creative team:
Adam Dragun: director/screenplay/concept/performance
Klára Dolník: scenography/concept/dramaturgy
Anna Tóthová: performance
Eva Gabrižová: video/live-cam
Roman Poliak: dramaturgy
Ondrej Mankovecký: projection/light
Mário Drgoňa: dramaturgy/idea
Oliver Dragun: music/sound design
Ivo Dobrovodský: Production
Barbora Maximová: Production
Lukáš Klíma: Lightdesign
Petra Štefancová: Editing
Vanda Kotrády: Poster
Karina Golisová: Photo
Alexandra Gašparovičová: PR
Dramaturgical consultations: Sodja Zupancic Lotker, Wojtek Ziemilski, Olga Ciężkowska, Branislava Kuburović
Special thanks to: Gabika Tóthová, Róbert Tóth, Mikuláš Bado, Michal Tresa, Patrik Nagy.
Performance ALEX is produced by the Bratislava Project Bathyscaphe. Prague's multi-functional cultural space ARCHA+ participates in the project as a co-production. It was supported from public sources by the Fund for the Support of Art and the Foundation of the City of Bratislava. 2025 takes place at 7:00 p.m.