KAR

Fekete Seretlek & Studio Damúza

Czech Republic

---

Everyone knows that it was a train that killed Anna Karenina. And after that? Was she given an aristocratic send-off? A wake, a funeral choir, the clinking of glasses and a samovar? As if! Instead of ending in a fitting manner, the life of the deceased really gets going after her death. The locomotive races faster and faster through the noblewoman’s story, turning into a kind of witch’s sled that scrapes sharply along the edge between life and death. Five voices, a microphone-enhanced table plus various instruments and objects deconstruct Tolstoy’s novel and reassemble it in an anarchic, grotesque music cabaret.

Fekete Seretlek combines motifs from world music with object theatre to create their own distinct pieces. As a trio, the Czech ensemble began to stage a kind of musical folk theatre in 2004 and has since played at various music and theatre festivals throughout Europe. In the meantime, the group has expanded to include six musicians and actors who are all graduates of the Prague Theatre Academy (DAMU). They closely collaborate with the production company Studio Damúza, which specialises in supporting DAMU students and graduates.