MEDIATHEK

MISS AMERICA The story of a woman who has fallen in love with a city in which she is a foreigner. Mckenzie Tomski is a New York misfit, a discreet and self-confessed starer. Mckenzie is the queen of virtual loneliness. She is a being of fluid identity, who with ironic, dark, uncompromising humour destroys American clichés. Mckenzie is from the tribe of the lost, the outcast, those who stand in the shadows, in the grey zone, dreaming their American dream of how they will “make it one day”. Miřenka Čechová and Martin Tvrdý’s multimedia project provides a raw picture of life in Manhattan using music, text, rap, slam, stand-up, performance, Vojtěch Brtnický’s photography and Malaysian artist Chin Yew’s comics. The symbiosis of all these components brings us the authentic story of a woman who has fallen in love with a city in which she is a foreigner. The project is based on Miřenka Čechová’s book Miss AmeriKa, published in July 2018 by the wo-men publishers.

The energy that Miřenka Čechová radiates in her most recent project, Miss America, is stupendous. The hour-long production is a superb example of a perfectly-created multimedia form, which combines the spoken word, singing, movement and art.

// Credits //

CONCEPT AND DIRECTION: Miřenka Čechová, Martin Tvrdý
MUSIC: Martin Tvrdý
TEXT: Miřenka Čechová aka Mckenzie Tomski
PHOTOGRAPHY: Vojtěch Brtnický
ANIMATION: Martin Tvrdý
COMICS: Chin Yew
PRODUCTION DRAMATURGY: Petr Boháč
TEXT DRAMATURGY: Barbora Baronová
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Jacquelyn de Villiers
LIGHT DESIGN: Karlos Šimek
WONDER WOMAN’S COSTUMES: Eva Judová
PROJECT MANAGER: Barbora Repická, Ludmila Vacková
FOREIGN BOOKING: Tereza Havlíčková
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Petra Hanzlíková
CO-PRODUCED BY: Palác Akropolis / Akropolis Palace
PARTNERS: Dans Brabant [NL], Moving Station, Divadlo Drak
PRODUCTION SUPPORTED BY: Hlavní město Praha, MKČR. Činnost Spitfire Company je podpořena v roce 2018-2020 víceletým grantem hl. města Prahy ve výši 1 400 000 Kč.
CAST: Miřenka Čechová aka Mckenzie Tomski

Premiere on 17 May 2018 in the Akropolis Palace in Prague

// Authors //

MIŘENKA ČECHOVÁ (1982) Czech performer, choreographer, director and academic. Gained a Ph.D. in physical theatre direction at the Music Faculty of AMU in Prague. She has built up international renown thanks to her solo work, in which she also participates in the script and direction. Miřenka Čechová received a Fulbright scholarship to study and research in the US. As a director and choreographer she has created over 25 productions: Opera and the French Revolution (2016, direction) for Opera Lafayette, Lisner Auditorium in Washington DC and Rose Hall in the Lincoln Center, New York, Lessons of Touch (2015, concept, direction), Sniper's Lake (2015, direction, choreography, in coproduction with the Norwegian Baerum Kulturhus), FAiTH (2014, concept, direction, choreography and dance) on a residency with the Atlas performing Arts Center in Washington DC, Krevety a la Indigo (2013, direction), S/He is Nancy Joe (2012, concept, choreography and dance) and many others. Her most recent projects include the choreography for Viva la Mama! for the National Theatre in Prague and the co-direction of Fragments of Love Pictures and Second Hand Time by Svetlana Alexievich for the Spitfire Company.

MARTIN TVRDÝ (1979) Known from his solo projects as the rapper Bonus, but also as the producer of minimalist electronic music. He has gained several awards for his work, including the Apollo and Angel music awards. In recent years he has devoted himself mainly to music and sound design for film, theatre and virtual reality. In addition to the Spitfire Company, he also works with the National Theatre, Czech Radio, Vosto5 and many others. Together with Mary C. he founded the educational platform Kreaton, led a number of music workshops and is the author, for example, of the Playing Table concept, which makes the creation of electronic music accessible to children and laypeople. He is currently involved in the organisation of the platform _ZVUK_ (“SOUND”), which supports education, creative dialogue and the realisation of projects in the field of electronic music and sound art. In his other life, he works as a graphic designer in the Carton Clan collective.

// Spitfire Company //

SPITFIRE COMPANY is a group of artists focusing on physical, experimental and dance theatre. The characteristic features of their work can be summed up as putting an emphasis on physical aspects of each particular performance, experimenting with new means of theatre expression, emphasizing the existential level of characters, connecting different genres and searching for new visual stimuli.

// Press //

Čechová has written a highly poetical, emotional and subtly ironic text that is somewhere between prose and poem. It contains gloomy tones, but also joyfulness and humour, exaggeration. This is all fairly surprising, because we have not met with this sort of expression from her before. The text, interestingly divided up and rhythmised, goes excellently with the music that Martin Tvrdý (Bonus) has composed for her. It perceives the New York environment with original and stylish variety, containing echoes of beat, but also punk. Plus a wide range of the sounds of the big city that brilliantly capture the atmosphere.
– Jana Machalická, Lidové noviny

Although Miss America is a probe into the lives of artists and foreigners in New York, it has something to say to those who have never been there and never will. A hectic age, productivity demands, the race for success, pretence, alienation and loneliness are among the universal themes that are of fundamental concern to us, wherever we are. Miřenka Čechová has brilliantly harnessed a genre that tends to be more the domain of men, and once again surprises.
– Daniela Machová, Taneční aktuality

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