My Hooves Have Already Torn Up the Ground

seeking common ground

They look at us from lonely pet beds and from the windows of apartment blocks. From clothing patterns, wallpapers, and screen savers. From photos, videos, and social-media accounts. Nature. Pushed out, saddled, and imprisoned within human frames and frameworks. Shoved behind the bars of our language, its winged (!) expressions and clichés. Are we still capable of truly encountering it at all? Other than through our own self-centeredness? What about the elephant in the room? Or better yet, right there in your living room!

Three remarkable creative personalities Tereza Maxmilián Marečková, Dušan Hřebíček, and, as a guest, Eva Marie Růžena, a Brno-based poet who uniquely reflects even the colors of the autistic spectrum on which she herself is situated, take the elephant in the room at its word. What kinds of lives do animals live with us? And what are they afraid of along the way? Set out with us on a poetic, authorial expedition in search of our contemporary understanding of nature and its stereotypes. And, more broadly still, in search of perspectives we too often push aside. Or… from which we push ourselves aside?

In a production distinguished by a strong audiovisual line, the cat Emilka Říhová will also appear live, along with spiders, flies, mites, and others still unknown to us.

Eliška Balog (b. 1994) is a prominent figure of the emerging generation of Czech theatre directors. After studying directing and dramaturgy of alternative and puppet theatre at DAMU, her name has appeared in both experimental venues (Vzlet, MeetFactory…) and major institutional stages (National Theatre, Činoherní studio Ústí nad Labem…). She works across genres, with a particular inclination towards masks, movement, and visual stylisation. Her work is closely linked to writing dramatic texts, which she then stages herself. She is interested in themes of minorities, exclusion, and otherness. For the play Všem se nám uleví, she received the Evald Schorm Award in 2021.