Club Without a Name (2022)

The performance involving people, objects and stories.

This project is dedicated to the theme of liminality, the transient object, and the concept of a gift. “The Club Without a Name” is a solidarity performance created to support refugee families from Ukraine — people who have left their homes due to the Russian state’s invasion and the war it has unleashed. Each gift collected during the performance had its own unique story of love and attachment.

The performance consisted of two stages.

The first part involved collecting gifts and the stories behind them. Donors filled out a questionnaire while the performer made a sketch of the gift, which was later attached to the completed questionnaire. The donors were mainly students and teachers from the DAMU Academy.

The second part involved distributing the gifts to children along with their stories, as well as gathering personal stories from the children and their parents, mostly about the war. The gifts were given out, and documentation was kept, along with the stories of both the donors and the recipients.

Donors: Robert Smolík, Vojta Horálek, Jiří Havelka, Marketa Labusova, Tomáš Procházka, Anna Prstková, Lukáš Jiřička, Denisa Václavová, Anna Dobiášová, Karol Filo, Olesia Usata, Tereza Magnan, Veronika Svobodová, Antonie Formanová, Anna Hubená, Josefína Holcová, Kristýna Täubelová, Karin Bílíková, Dáša Gosteva, Jiří Adámek Austerlic, Karolina Plicková, Michaela Homolová, Marek Bečka, Barbora Etlíková, Normandy Sherwood.

Donors of Stories: Children from Ukraine, as well as from Belarus and the Czech Republic.

Task for the donors (given in advance): You need to bring a toy that was either your favorite during childhood or something similar that brings back memories. The toy doesn’t have to be beautiful but should be interesting and important to you — the best toy in the world, according to your taste. The toy should also come with a story — why you loved it, and so on. I will take this toy from you, and it will first be part of a new performance before being given to children as a gift. So, you will say goodbye to the toy.
A very short one-on-one performance.