Czechoslovak Society of Arts & Sciences

Saturday, October 6 and Sunday, October 7, 2018
11:30 am – 9 pm
Bohemian National Hall
321 E 73 St, NYC

The two-day festival celebrates the traditional folk arts and two auspicious anniversaries: the Centennial of the founding of Czechoslovakia (1918) and the Millennial of the unification of the Lands of the Czech Crown, under Duke Oldrich (1018).

Events include marionette theater performances, folk music concerts with Czech, Slovak, Moravian, Silesian, Roma and Rusyn folk songs (Feels Like Home), and folk song-inspired performances (A Tribute to the Art of the Folk Song), traditional folk dance and costume kroje presentations, film screenings, a sing-along and more.

The festival will feature the Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre (CAMT) in the US Premiere of the mainstage marionette production, “Duke Oldrich & Washerwoman Božena: The True Story,” and a one-man family marionette show of Czech and Slovak fairy tales; and a USA debut concert of Beata Bocek, the talented Czech Polish folk singer and musician performing on a variety of instruments and in a variety of languages. She will also be performing in the main marionette production.

A market will offer Czech and Slovak arts and crafts, puppets and an array of traditional Czech foods and beverages.
(Vendors please register by Oct 1, 2018. One table fee $75/day)

Tickets prices vary from suggested donation to $38(2-day pass)
RSVPs are recommended.
RSVP or buy tickets ONLINE.
Tickets by phone: 1 (800) 838-3006

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PROGRAM (subject to change)

SATURDAY, October 6th

11:30am WATER GOBLIN & OTHER CZECH & SLOVAK TALES (Vodník, Cert a Káca, Pejsek a Kocicka)
Vit Horejs one-man -marionette show for families. In English

1 pm STRINGS! CAMERA! AKCE! (ACTION!)
Film screenings of Animated and documentary puppetry films
Folk Arts Celebration
2 pm BLUE PATTERNS
Traditional modrotisk (indigo) textile print presentation by Petra Valentova-Gupta, followed by hands-on block-printing for families.

4pm FEELS LIKE HOME Folk Songs and Fashion
Folk songs performed by Ariana Lem Trio (Slovak and Rusyn), Petra Gelbart (Roma), James Warhola introduces recording of his grandma, Andy Warhol’s mother, Karel Smekal and Klara Zikova (Czech songs). Presentations of traditional costumes kroje by their owners and sharing of their stories. Moderated by Milada Melli-Jones.

7 pm DUKE OLDRICH and WASHER WOMAN BOŽENA
A full production of CAMT marionette theater. In English.

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SUNDAY, October 7th

11:30 am WATER GOBLIN & OTHER CZECH & SLOVAK TALES” (Vodník, Cert a Káca, Pejsek a Kocicka)
Vit Horejs one-man -marionette show for families. In English.

1 pm STRINGS! CAMERA! AKCE! (ACTION!)
Film screenings of Animated and documentary puppetry films

2:30 pm DUKE OLDRICH AND WASHERWOMAN BOŽENA
A full production of CAMT marionette theater. In English.

4pm A DANCE CLASS BY LIMBORA DANCERS
A presentation about Slovak folkdance tradition with a dance lesson for the audience.

Twin Concerts
6 pm A TRIBUTE TO THE ART OF A FOLK SONG – Artists share their favorite folk songs performed in various genres (jazz, opera, cabaret, rock). Featuring Peter Breiner, Javor Bracíc, Pavlína Horáková, Gabriela Miková-Johnson, Katarína Vizina, Ladi Šmigura, Klára Zíková English and others. Hanka G, Tomáš Kaco, a href=”http://georgemraz.com/camilla_bio.html”>Camilla Mráz and Ester Wiesnerova via video. Moderated by Pavlína Horaková
7pm BEATA BOCEK in CONCERT – US Premier
A popular multitalented Czech-Polish folk singer and musician (guitar, flute, accordion). Bocek will perform traditional and not so traditional music, including an array of songs in Polish, Czech and invented languages.

The festival is produced by GOH Productions in cooperation with Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association (BBLA), Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU-NY), CzechMatters with support by the Czech and Slovak Consulates in New York.

Contacts:
GOH Productions/CAMT, Bonnie Stein
SVU-NY/ CzechMatters, Suzanna Halsey,
BBLA, Pavla Niklová, office@bohemianbenevolent.org

Monday, October 15, 2018 at 7:00 pm
at Bohemian National Hall
321 E 73 St, New York City

A Talk and Exhibition

There were more than 50,000 Czechs and Slovaks living in New York City in the early 20th century and they continue to have a presence today.
The exhibition Czech and Slovak New York 1848-2018 offers a rare opportunity to explore the many locations in New York City with connections to Czech and Slovak history, and to recall important personalities, organizations and periodicals.
Martin Nekola, the curator of the exhibition, will take us on a journey through history of New York’s Czech and Slovak communities, and present his new project.

RSVP: newyork@svu2000.org
Free. Suggested donation $5.00

Martin Nekola, Ph.D. is a political scientist and historian, born in Prague. He studied at Charles University in Prague and was a Fulbright post-doctoral fellow at Columbia University. His research focuses on the Czechoslovak Exile community after 1948 and Czech communities in the USA. He is the author of three hundred articles and has published ten books in the past ten years. Since publishing Czech Chicago in 2017, he has been working on a new book – Czech New York.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association (BBLA).

Thursday, September 20, 2018, at 7 pm

Bohemian National Hall, 3rd fl.
321 E 73 St, New York City

RSVP
Free. Suggested donation $5.00

Illustrated presentations by Meghan Forbes, Ph.D., and the artist Gabriel Levicky. Organized as a part of the centennial celebration of the founding of Czechoslovakia in 1918.

In the period between the two World Wars, various artistic and poetic strategies in Europe reflected the absurdity of recent violence and optimism for a more utopic future. In this brief window of openness on the continent, artists and ideas moved and mingled, and movements like Dada and Surrealism spread from one major city to another. Prague was a capital of these interactions and exchanges, and the Czech leftist avant-garde participated notably in the art production of the period. Encounters with visiting Dadaists in the early 1920s from Germany and Yugoslavia, and the formation of a group of Czech Surrealists in the mid-1930’s, mark but a couple of such examples.
The evening is dedicated to the legacy of this rich art historical past, as Meghan Forbes offers an overview of some manifestations of Czech Dada and Surrealism in the work of Karel Teige, Vítezslav Nezval, Jindrich Štyrský and Toyen, and the Slovak artist Gabriel Levicky presents his collage works Gablevages that carry the surrealist DNA. Moderated by Christopher Harwood, Ph.D., Columbia University, with a Q&A to follow.

Meghan Forbes is the C-MAP Fellow for Central and Eastern Europe at The Museum of Modern Art, New York and a Visiting Scholar at NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, where she completed a dissertation titled “In the Middle of It All: Prague, Brno, and the Avant-Garde Networks of Interwar Europe.” Meghan has received numerous grants and fellowships for her research, including an IIE Fulbright award for the 2015-2016 academic year. Her translations from the Czech and Slovak, book and exhibition reviews, and essays have appeared in publications such as Um?ní/Art, post at MoMA, Hyperallergic, Words Without Borders, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and Literary Hub, and she is the sole editor of the volume, International Perspectives on Publishing Platforms: Image, Object, Text, forthcoming in early 2019 from Routledge. Meghan is also founder and co-editor of the not-for-profit small press imprint harlequin creature.

Gabriel Ariel Levicky, GabLev ’18 is an artist, poet, translator and NYC tour guide. His cartoons, poetry, and collages gablevages reflect a strong DaDa/Surreal influence, employing humor, sarcasm and self-mocking. Born in Humenne, Eastern Slovakia, he studied in Bratislava where he joined a dissident group opposing the communist regime and signed the Charter 77. Until 1979, his work was published in Czechoslovak and international magazines and newspapers. Later as a result of increasing persecution by the STB secret police, he was forced to leave Czechoslovakia. Before settling in New York, he lived in California where he earned his BA in international relations at San Francisco State University.