In their new piece, Sabina Bocková and Johana Pocková balance on the borders between entertainment and perversity. They travel from manipulating the audience to self-manipulation, oscillating between the roles of leaders and victims. With unusual lightness and an openness of meaning, they are passing through the known figures common as social/cultural references and doing so, space for interpretation, critical thinking and the audience’s own positioning is created. 
The Lion’s Den is an electrifying performance with strong emotional charge and high intensity. In combination with vivid live music, the created atmospheres are used and sometimes abused for powerful emotional pressure.

 

Concept, choreography, performing: Johana Pockova, Sabina Bockova

Music: Lukas Palan

Dramaturgy: Viktor Cernicky

Light design: Eliska Kocianova

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Production: POCKetART z. s.

​Co-produced by: Tanec Praha z. ú., Ponec - theater for contemporary dance

Financially supported by: Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, State culture fund of The Czech Republic, Prague City Hall

Supported by: Studio Alta, Cooltour Ostrava, Akropolis Palace, Tantehorse z. s.

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Reviews:

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“In the beginning dancers are waggishly looking at the audience. Through inconspicuous gestures they invite to a participation on something that will surely be amusing and entertaining. Their delighted faces and energetic gestures grow in more and more dynamics until overlarge swishes through space. Their spastic faces testify that they, as enticers have been caught into their own loop. It is so easy to fall into the “lion’s den”. Gestures and mimics are changing minimalistic, we can’t even recognize the moments of transformations from one movement into another. Fierceness in their bodies and in their faces is in a contrast with their perfectly ironed costumes of perfectly styled figures from an advert for new entertainment show or a bank loan. It is in December that this performance evokes also associations for an advertising industry, which in these days shows so many pre-Christmas offers subliminally saying: “Buy now, pay later”. “ (Lucie Kocourková, Taneční Aktuality, 16.12.2019)

Link: https://www.tanecniaktuality.cz/recenze/jama-lvova-ciha-v-ponci

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“Johana Pocková and Sabina Bocková decided to expose their bodies as an examples of defencelessness. In symbiosis with live music of Lukas Palán, light design of Eliska Kociánová and under the dramaturgical eye of Viktor Cernický, they created an ecstatic outcry of an unfree individual, who allowed her own perspective to be taken away.” (Kristýna Boháčová, Divadelní noviny, 6.1.2020)

Link: https://www.divadelni-noviny.cz/slovo-v-pohybu-no-7

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“In the moment, when their arms are mutually interweaving around their heads it evokes an impression of puppets being controlled by someone else from behind. It forces them to kiss, it drags them through space. A strong moments, which give shivers. That is when performers are taking upon themselves the roles of being manipulated. Expressive, suggestive…a fall into a Lion’s Den.”(Daniela Machová, Dance News, 5.10.2019)

Link: https://www.tanecniaktuality.cz/recenze/emergency-dances-i-v-zajeti-medii-moci-a-bezmoci

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https://www.tanecniaktuality.cz/recenze/expresivni-imaginace-treatment-of-remembering

https://www.tanecniaktuality.cz/zpravy/cesky-tanec-uspel-v-konkurenci-vice-nez-600-evropskych-del