Wen Hui & Jana Svobodová

There’s something extraordinary about ordinary people. Men and women, more or less young, professional dancers, professional musicians, a labourer, an artist and a self-taught female film director come together and take over the stage, looking after the scene and one another according to their own languages. “Ordinary People” brings together the Archa Theatre, a famous Czech performing arts centre, where Jana Svobodová is artistic direction of Archa.lab, and the Living Dance Studio, the first independent company in China, headed by Wen Hui—they were both founded in 1994. Bringing documentary theatre and dance closer, this project also brings Czechoslovakia and China closer—two countries that share an identical political history written by a totalitarian communist political system. At a time when leaders of many countries show disdain for human rights in favour of their political interests, a key question arises: who are the ordinary people those leaders claim to represent? Vladimir is 73 years old. He worked his whole life in a tool factory. When he was young he was the king of rock and roll in Prague. Every Saturday, he would overwhelm the dance floors with his extravagant, “capitalist" dance, and every Saturday the Police would escort him out. Wen is a dancer and choreographer. She graduated from the theatre academy to become first ballerina at the propaganda’s ballet company. During her youth she lived through student protests, but change never came to happen. She saved herself, but she never forgot the trauma. Based on their personal experiences, Vladimir and Wen show that the two countries have more in common than they have differences. As a response, Vladimir and share the same area of freedom—the stage.


Wen Hui choreographer and dancer. She also makes documentary films and installations. She is one of the pioneers of Chinese contemporary dance theatre. Wen Hui graduated from Beijing Dance Academy in 1989 with a degree in Choreography. In 1994, she studied modern dance in New York. From 1997 to 1998, she received a scholarship from Asian Cultural Council to further her study of modern dance and theatre making in New York. In 1994, she formed Living Dance Studio with Wu Wenguang in Beijing, and has participated in curating and organizing numerous arts projects. For twenty years, Wen Hui has insisted on using theatre as an intervention in the society. Since 2008, she began to research the ways body form the archive of personal social documentation, using personal means to experiment how bodily memory catalyzes collision between history and reality. 

Jana Svobodova theatre director, researcher, teacher. She graduated from Prague Theatre Academy in 1987. Her early artistic experience was influenced by artists like Peter Schumann in the U.S., Min Tanaka in Japan, and later by Viewpoints method of Anne Bogart. As a director Jana Svobodová creates projects that are based on the cooperation between professional artists and representatives of specific social groups. She is the artistic director of the Akcent –International Festival of Documentary Theatre, co-founder and teacher of the International Summer School on Theatre in Social Context, and a member of the FLAB collective. The performance Ordinary People, which she co-directed with Wen Hui, will be presented at the main program of Festival D’Avignon 2019 and Festival D‘Automne in Paris 2019.