POCKETART collective is an internationally acclaimed team of creators working in the field of contemporary dance and physical theater under the direction of the choreographers Johana Pocková and Sabina Bocková. As part of its projects, the team brings together artists from the fields of dance, music, scenography, fine arts, and light design. Their work has toured internationally and their pieces have been part of Aerowaves Twenty20 and Twenty21 and also part of European projects such as Shape it! and Big Pulse Dance Alliance.

 

The work of the team is characterized by tackling topics that go beyond the personal experience of the individual and touch upon societal issues such as manipulation through media, global environmental threats, stress in a competitive environment, or the position of an individual in the corporate work system. The creators try to approach these topics comprehensively through detailed work with all theatrical components. For each of their works, they always look for a new stylization of physical expression unique to the topic at hand, creating dance images from specific body references. Through their distinctive poetics, visual purity and strong original music, the performances aim to give birth to a spiritual experience, compelling the audience to reflect on our society.

 

In 2018, the team introduced their first performance, Warehouses Full of Emotions, inspired by intergenerational views of femininity and the authentic memories of an old lady. Under the choreographic direction of Johana Pocková, four dancers collaborated on this work, as well as Pockova’s 89-year-old grandmother and an 8-year-old girl. This performance was later transformed into the dance film Folds of Touch. In 2019, POCKETART introduced Onto the Scale! - Johana Pocková’s duet with the central theme of stress in a competitive environment. 

 

In 2019, having previously collaborated on several projects, Sabina Bočková and Johana Pocková created The Lion's Den, a duet pondering the themes of media manipulation and political populism. This work was selected for the Czech Dance Platform 2020, included in Top 20 of the choreographic platform AerowavesTwenty21, and the duet was performed at the festivals TANEC PRAHA 2020 and 2021, Kenya International Theater Festival, New Baltic Dance Festival, Malá Inventura, and the Flora a festival in Olomouc.

In the following years, the performance Lion's Den was transformed into two other projects. One of them is the outdoor performance The Lion`s Den UNLIMITED, which involves 14 professional and 14 non-professional dancers, who together create and subsequently perform choreography based on the original duet. This project was part of the festival TANEC PRAHA 2021 and was shortlisted for the European platform Big Pulse Dance Alliance. The Lion's Den was also included in the project Shape It!, which gives artists an opportunity to collaborate with children and adapt their work for young audiences. The partners of Shape It! are The Place London, Comune di Bassano del Grappa, Tanec Praha, and Annantalo.

 

In 2020, the team premiered Treatment of Remembering, a performance created by Sabina Bočková, Johana Pocková, and Inga Zotova-Mikshina. It touches upon the topics of the global threat to the environment and the disappearance of nature from our world. This piece won the International Jury Prize and the Audience Award at Czech Dance Platform 2021, as well as being included in AerowavesTwenty22. In 2021 POCKETART produced To the Madonna with Rust, a solo performance by Johana Pocková, which was nominated for Czech Dance Platform 2022 and TANEC PRAHA festival 2022.

 

The latest POCKETART production is a performance Bodies Together, a collective creation of 7 performers under direction of Jaro Viňarský and Lucia Kašiarová, which deals with the impact of corporation structures on our lives. Sabina Bočková and Johana Pocková are currently working on their newest production for 8 dancers Fairy Tales, which is an upscaling coproduction of Big Pulse Dance Alliance.

 

The long-term co-production partners of POCKETART are Tanec Praha z.ú. and PONEC – the dance venue. The creative team is financially supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, the Capital City of Prague, the State Cultural Fund and Prague 3 City District. POCKETART’s performances are regularly performed on Prague stages such as the dance venue Ponec, Venuše ve Švehlovce, Studio ALTA, as well as in venues around the Czech Republic and abroad.

​

The annual report for 2019 can be downloaded here

​

The annual report for 2020 can be downloaded here

​

The annual report for 2021 can be downloaded here