Space within us and around us.
As I mentioned above, I studied theatre directing at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. Until then, I had mainly focused on acting, and it was through this that my passion for performing in different spaces originated. I spent a lot of time performing on the street and in various other outdoor locations in different weather conditions and for audiences of different sizes, ranging from intimate performances to larger street productions. During my studies, I focused on staging in various spaces, and over time this became the centre of my interest and an obsession. I realised how important space was to me and began to explore theatre spaces, their origins and how they have transformed over the centuries. I also explored how light and darkness affect the audience and their willingness to engage with the play. I considered how much theatre needs to captivate the audience and how much distance they need to maintain in order to perceive the message of the work and other nuances. Upon returning to Slovakia from Prague, I founded the ART Inn art platform in my hometown of Rožňava. This is a loose association of professionals from various fields and genres who come together under the ART Inn brand to work on a variety of projects. We have organised projects in various locations in the city and the surrounding Gemer region, which is rich in architectural, technical and cultural monuments. We have collaborated with the Slovak National Museum, the Mining Museum, and the Kláštor cultural and creative centre, located in an old Franciscan monastery in the city centre nad others. We always create theatre performances or installations exclusively for one specific location, which is very limiting.My goal is to reveal and name the architectural principles and characteristics of space that could be generalized and defined so that the performance could be staged in different places, or to create a kind of mobile studio that would allow the audience a perfect immersive experience.
As a theatre director, I have long been searching for a partner with whom I can discuss and explore the theatre space. Not a theatre building, but an interior or exterior space in which theatre could be performed. I ask myself how the architecture of a space affects the viewer, considering factors such as airiness or crampedness, brightness or darkness, atmosphere, air and temperature, and mystery or familiarity. How does transformation and movement in space affect them? How do they perceive themselves in space? And how does this affect their perception of the play? For several years now, I have been exploring a type of theatre called immersive theatre. This type of theatre uses and offers many principles, but the most important ones are to intensify the audience's experience by using real spaces for the performance and to let the audience be co-authors of the play they are watching. This is achieved by enabling them to shape the narrative, as the action often occurs in multiple locations simultaneously, allowing the audience to select which scenes they wish to witness. Consequently, they navigate the production at their own pace and in their own direction. The audience is active and moves through a space that is somehow modelled, created, realistic or illusory. It is a fascinating world in which there are as many performances as there are audience members in a specific space. Turning to architecture, I have been following trends in immersive theatre for a long time. My next logical step is to collaborate with architects to design a flexible theatre space that functions like film studios, offering a variety of technical and acoustic solutions. The space should still function as a theatre, but also as a living space for visitors. The secondary goal is to create a space where people can rediscover their love of theatre. I believe that nowadays, artists have to work much harder to attract people to art and that it is also an important part of their job.