Programme of the AKCENT festival

AKCENT was founded 13 years ago to give the Czech audience an overview of what documentary theatre can be. Over all these years we have presented the biggest stars of theatre that celebrates authenticity. Most often these are the personal stories of the creators, or the people the artists reach out to. As curators and dramaturgs, we have always been interested in what theatrical language any given artist chooses to use so that the moment of authenticity can be preserved in the artificial environment of the theatre.

Rimini Protokoll, Lola Arias, Milo Rau, Wim Vandekeybus, Wen Hui and Living Dance Studio, SheShe Pop, Forced Entertainment, the world's top theatre artists who have greatly influenced and continue to influence the Czech scene.

AKCENT has been around for 13 years, every fall, even the covid one, which was held online and the centerpiece of which was a huge conference featuring many of the stars named above, called "No More Kissing." It was a time when we weren't allowed to hug, shake hands, much less kiss both cheeks several times as a sign of greeting.

We debated what a world would look like in which people didn't touch each other in a sign of closeness. The year is 2023, the 13th edition of AKCENT is here. It's a theatre that invites you to be close, to meet, to have a personal contact. It invites us to dare to say things the way we really feel. Each of the productions we will see this year says to us:
Be yourself! This is very much needed nowadays!
Take your time, come and be yourself!

Jana Svobodová, artistic director of the AKCENT festival