Divadlo Kvelb - „Invaze“

On Saturday, I saw a performance art piece in the city center at Náměstí Svobody. The Divadlo Kvelb (Kvelb Theater) came to Brno from České Budějovice to perform „Invaze“ (Invasion).

This is a moving production so the crowd follows the performers though the streets with a few key stops. The entire performance was a little over an hour. It is a satirical view of communism and, even though the whole thing was in Czech, I was still able to get the gist of what was going on.

A general in his beat-down tank and four followers go up and down the steets accompanied by loud music. They use red & white tape to annex everything in sight. Along the way they start putting up signs banning jazz, flowers, freedom, etc. They eventually come to giant rag dolls that represent different characters. One puppet gives in, another resists the invaders, one is an informer and causes another puppet to be hanged, one flees to the west, etc. A couple of the puppets get dragged behind the tank and end up in prison. At the end, the invaders take on religion and a giant angel.

The production was quite good. And free!! The crowd really got in to in. I thought it was neat that the crowd and I both laughed at the same parts. Here are a couple of videos I took on my camera. Another video and other photos are already up on Flickr.