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Farm in the Cave, a spontaneous physical theatre, and its performances Waiting-Room and Sclavi - The Song of an Emigrant are precise, truthful and demanding art, and we can be appropriately proud of that. In brief, within the context of the festival, European theatre of the new millennium.

All the performances were sold out, packed with audiences hungry for the contemporary as well as legendary anthropological, etnographical and physical theatre... In this theatrical field, the Czech public has not encountered such a wide-scale festival relying on artistic quality and current trends yet... With Farma 2007 festival, a new era in Czech movement theatre has begun.

Each scene blends into the next - all stunningly choreographed... Some of what they show is recognisable - the head-scraves, the ill-fitting workers jackets, the haunting laments. Other elements in this harshly beautiful dance/drama are far from the picture-book images of workers toiling in fields or factories - the misery, death, drinking and fighting; the love and lust and sheer physicality or lives lived on the edge... The words are unfamiliar but the meaning is clear... Festival was created for shows like this - weird and wonderful.

Best of all is the return of Czech company Farm in the Cave with Sclavi / The Song Of The Emigrant, a brilliant and downright brutal piece of dance theatre exploring the immigrant experience and, in particular, the misplaced nostalgia of return. Polyphonic music and ritual songs combine with some razor sharp physical work to create 60 minutes thet explore the nature of exile and the agony of longing.

Sclavi is a stunning sensory experience… Conveying the feeling of fear, hope, pain and loss, with a fragmented and almost brutal look at the lives of these travelling hopefuls, Sclavi uses the full spectrum of language and traditional sound, with a physicality that contrasts the elegance of the story with the brutal and often violent reality of an emigrant’s life.

„Docolomanský together with other gifted ´cavers´ brought to light the deceptive ache of Slovak history – the participation of Slovaks in the deportation, that is killing of Slovak Jews. In the hallucinatory pictures, where the dead meet the alive, past shame lasciviously rubs against present shame. A masterfully and deeply dug finger in the wound of collective (un)memory!“

„The peak of the performance is again, however, the unique and characteristic acting of the studio´s members, acting that brings about… intense, almost psychosomatic experience in the audience. What is remarkable is especially the ability to articulate – without words, mainly through physical action – even the most abstract pictures and feelings…“

„This theatre hurts, because it is able – directly in front of the eyes of the audience – to reveal the crime and quilt both of the past and our immediate presence. That continuity is especially terrifying – because it is veiled into a seductively beautiful cover. A forgotten railway station? In this railway station, the world awaits.“

“Everything seen and experienced on stage is produced live for your delight. The imagery is authentic and brutally real and bound to touch even the most cold hearted… A show to let yourself go and be involved.”

“Drawing on authentic letters and fragments of polyphonic songs form Slovakia and Ukraine, a ravenously sensitive and physically electric cast of eight follows a poetic, rather than literal, plotline about the emigrant experience. In Viliam Docolomansky’s impressive staging, their collective voice is both howl and lullaby.”

“The catchline to this deeply-affecting whirligig of songs, dances and fleeting encounters tells you all you need to know in advance: Though he has returned to his homeland, he will always be an emigrant… The impressively versatile performers of Farm in the Cave make every detail tell volumes here, whether it’s the symbolic breaking of bred or the breaking of our emigrant’s home-coming illusions.”

“It begins in clatter and cacophony and ends in silence. This is Beckett rendered into movement and song…The piece has a strange hallucinatory quality. In the shadows, figures step in each other’s footprints; fights break out as if in slow motion… As befits a show about being an outsider, Sclavi is something shattered and fragmented, always happening on the jagged edges rather than in the centre.”

„Drawing on fragments of song, verse and anecdote from Slovakia’s rich history of the emigrant experience, the place is not so much a narrative as a tonal cacophony of a people’s grief, fury and desolation… Performed with tender symbolism, intimate poetry and a pounding passion, this is all too rare example of theatre you instantly want to see all over again.”

"POWER is a fine thing... So when the lights go up on Farm In The Cave´s magnificent show SCLAVI/Song Of An Emigrant, at Aurora Nova, there´s something archetypal about the image that faces us ... we could be at a border crossing, in a railway yard, in a makeshift encampment, or in the middle of some bleak field, where migrant workers are taken each day to pick at the icy earth...Farm In The Cave show great courage in exploring the profound fear and mistrust of migration that lies deep in their culture; and the qualitiy and intensitiy of their performance, directed by Viliam Docolomansky, is simply unforgettable."

"The harsh, unkempt space at NoD suits Viliam Docolomansky´s physical expression unusually well. All that is there are scratched walls and doors at the back of the stage. However, Docolomansky knows exactly how to make the most of the dramatic potential of the space. With one gate and the space behind it, he succeeds in creating a non-material, light and sense in such a way that the metal door becomes significant and fateful in our eyes like an ikonostasis, the curtain in a crematorium, a widow´s veil."

„Docolomanský´s feeling for musical composition, and the entire musicality in his productions, exerts not only the direct instrumentation of the music and song, but also an emotionally impressive modelling of the production’s story. In connection with the exceptional physical performances, we have in front of us a choreographic theatre par excellence.“

„… Farm in the Cave deliver, with extraordinary beauty, Sclavi, a sung tale of migrant workers … their complicated, defiant polyphony is the saddest, purest, most arresting sound on the Fringe.”

“… a theatre production which overflows with vitality and the optimism inherent to any artist who believes in the resilience of the human spirit. SCLAVI, like so many of the works which have presented at Aurora Nova in the past, is much more than mere theatrical entertainment.”

Unidram: SCLAVI-The Song of an Emigrant from Prague
"... the voice of this performance goes beyond the borders of language. Through the extraordinarily beautiful songs, the Czechs build up a relationship to the rich cultural treasures of the East, and through the danced pictures a universal man, which goes beyond all borders."
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„SCLAVI/The Song of an Emigrant" at UNIDRAM in Potsdam. "Under the guidance of Marjana Sadowska the seven actors give the songs a siren-like authenticity which makes tears come to your eyes. But they don´t just sing, they perform using their whole body – always concentrated around the metal cart, which stands for everything: a fortress of defiance, Thespise´s cart, a pub or the claustrophobic hiding-place of a Truck smuggling people."
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“Farm in the Cave managed to create a situation which theatre historians often
recall with nostalgia. It is reminiscent of the Greek theatre, of Grotowski’s theatre, of theatre of all those times and communities that had the benefit of values shared between the stage and auditorium. The unity of minds and feelings between the stage and the spectators was almost physically palpable
in the rhythm that washed over the spectators as everyone was waiting to exhale. What else could anyone wish for in an atmosphere of a theatre?”
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"The result is a performance , which combines all expressive means - movement, acting, word, song, sound. Farm in the Cave trusts in the human imagination, in the willingness to read symbols and approach metaphors.
The emotional weight, which the actors experienced during the hard rehearsal process, is somehow transferred to the spectator in a way that that makes watching difficult.
Farm in the Cave represents an approach to theatre, which will never become mainstream, but is an absolute necessity for the existence of living theatre with a message."

...I think it is quite right to say that this is a major event on scene of movement-
based theatre. It is, in fact, a major event of the theatre season. ...
"...The theme of emigration, poverty, drudgery (slave-like labor) abroad, estrange oneself like a dirty grand stream, tearing bodies, hearts, hands, eyes, livers, tongues and consciences. All expressive levels live together in a tight symbiosis, so that together they condense into an explosive mixture.
The perfection and the well - coordinated action of the actors is amazing, there is well more than one year of work behind them...
...the most outstanding element of the performance is movement. Without becoming descriptive, it is unusually eloquent and extraordinarily inventive. Corresponding to this the director is inventive in movement detail, insatiable in rhythm, courageous and a perfectionist and in group compositions."

"Matej Matejka ( in the role of Lorca) perfectly controls his body and balances between high tension and total release. The rest of the ensemble keeps the balance. Antagonisms tearing the soul are expressed and completed through movement.The refined choreography reminds one of the mens´ballet duets by Boris Eijfman, transferred to the field of contemporary dance. There aren´t many words in the performance.Silence, filled with deep breaths, the rhythm of tapping heels, traditional singing creates an extraordinary stream of narration, which captures the spectator with ever growing urgency.
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”What stayed in my mind: Dark Love Sonnets – a total performance with whipped up expression in wild flamenco rhythm. With punctual precision in movement the actors fulfill the damnation of a poet facing a faith-breaking world as if torn out of bones in Hamlet-style. And I would wish You to see his potrait of Dorian Gray in Karlovy Vary! Docolomansky will either move the globe, or he will be killed by the groundedness of our world. From my heart I wish him the best.”

"Young czech theatre ensemble filled the auditorium. They fascinated with a performance growing up directly from the best traditions of Grotowski. The protagonist is Federico García Lorca. Without prudishness, but with great sensitiveness, finesse and wisdom they expressed the love of two men on stage."

"...by milimetre exact , admirable well-thought out orchestration and timing in the rhythm of the voices, tones, movements, lights, metaphors and only then words. Polyphony of motives, photographical details, fragments, declarations of love and verses, which gradually transformed the chamber space of STUDIO BESEDA into a fragile meeting place of nine performers, all this, alone wouldn´t be worth anything, if it wasn´t filled up with boiling engagement, “southern“ temperament, passion ...“ and more...

“The Sonnets absorbed me; they were an extract of Lorca’s passion ... they were truly about love, about the power of love… I was close to the mystery, close to touch, a centimetre away; sparks were flying. The performance waned into silence, it seemed that no one would be able to applaud, just as it used to be at Teatr Laboratorium. Finally the applause happened, and so did the curtain calls. Second time I went to see the show was with my students and they (and many others) did not want to leave when it finished. They remained seated, deep in thought, as if the crossing from this world into the ordinary city traffic was a loss, as if that which happened inside was hard to part with… For my students it was the strongest theatre thrill yet.”

“Lorca’s life and its focal points…are portrayed in rich, largely non-verbal acting movements. These are however highlighted with raw, seemingly authentic vocals. Admirable interpretative precision is particularly striking in the hurricane choreography of the shirt exchange… In the context of Czech theatre I consider Doèolomanský´s project to be exceptional.“

"The theatrical Lorca is looking towards the unknown through a small sheet of glass, as if he himself was hung up between life and death. As if the actors told us: It is difficult to figure in such a position in a mad and roaring world without human understanding, it is difficult to rescue contemptuosly abused love. The actors are able to embody the inner crack, which is caused by love in both ways, sometimes delicate and sometimes rough."

Director of the Centre Stanislav Krotoski: “In the long history of this place, this space, we have witnessed many different things. Such fantastic and enthusiastic applause is, however, rare even here. I have one request to put to you: it is my great wish to see you once again. Every such visit is an encouragement. For an old theatre-maker like me, it is always a rare treat to encounter something so impressive. It gives strength”.
Wlodzimierz Stanievski (Centre for Theatre Practices Gardzienice): “That which we have seen is a very good performance, excellent performance, one directed with extraordinary skill. It has the spirit of a ´masterpiece´
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“The better part of the performance is filled with excellently executed dance and physical expression…including music and percussion sounds which leave us in no doubt whether we are in Prague of the present or Spain of the 1930s.”

“The performance…is by no means a literary pious collage in the tradition of Viola. It is rough physical theatre where poetry is more likely to be found in the human body. Even flamenco does not sound romantic here,… quite the contrary. Its rhythm is stomped out of the floor with stubbornness and determination, its music and fiery songs serve as weapons.”

"..in the most suggestive and most dramatic of the scenes. It took place in the waiting room, where the passengers parted from each other. A jewish woman was singing a german song, a pair of lovers passionately tossed about on the floor and on the walls. Everything under the circumstances of an empathic rhythm, movement variations, strong emotions.
At the end we heard a voice coming from the speakers naming people who should have been deported to the concentration camp.
Characters fused gradually. All four pictures had in common, that there were no words. Important were emotions, frankness, filling of the space with emotions and transferring this state to the spectator. The space for any fable was minimal..."

"The slovak non-profit organization TRUC SPHÉRIQUE and their project of reconstructing the train station Zilina-Zariecie into a cultural centre won the prestigious annual prize by the European Cultural Foundation Amsterdam... From this year on this prize is given by the Amsterdam foundation to two independent organizations in Europe for quality of work in the field of arts and culture, and which contribute to border-crossing and inter-cultural cooperation in arts in the regions... according to the director of Truc sphérique MAREK ADAMOV the organization was given the price for the international theater project “The way to the station“, in which participated over 60 performers from 12 countries and for the building-up of the new cultural centre “The station Zilina-Zariecie."

"And after all there was one really exeptional happening, which is unfortunately unrepeatable ,for those who couldn´t come. The creators called it "The way to the station"... it had the form of a theatre event so emotionally strong, that no skin was thick enough to face its attacks. Who was not able to feel nakedness in Nitra, almost surely didn´t stay untouched on the trip to Zilina. "

"Dancers, movement theatre, fire performance, resourceful music, circus – different ethnical and cultural influences fused into one whole during an evening. The creators of the project also included the history of the building, which was inhabited by one family and not far from there was a gathering place for Jews before deportation during The Second World War. The performance which evoked Jakubisko´s films culminated in the courtyard next to the station, where the narrative marriage of the two protagonists took place...“

"The second scene offered several stories of five passengers in the waiting room. The graduation of the action was in opposition to the first much faster, marked by the almost stunt-like performance of the actors, who presented an unbelievable choreography of unbelievable movements."