The Tribe of Swans in the Streets of Prague

"My name is Siegfried and today I turned 21 years old. I will take a walk in the woods, to the lake. Each step will sound as the echo of a passage I have never done, of the door I have never opened into the rose garden. That is how the echo of my words sounds in your memory. Why should I swirl dust on the round vase with rose petals, I do not know."

Water as crystal which hangs above the dancers´ heads in the castle´s grand hall. Red lipstick, swan feather, roots of memories. Reflection in the mirror. Soil. Black and white. Dreamless night. Past looking like drowning cathedral. Prince Siegfried, frond Beno, the Mother Queen, Redbeard, Odette, Odile and the cursed swans who change into illusions of girl in the moonlight.

The curtain falls and the theatrical imagery lives on in our minds. Swan, ballerina, white girl, black swan, Bluebeard, prince…Often I walk through the historical centre in Prague and I see so many swans on the Moldau river. Usually they are white, the young ones grey and those who, confused, get onto the road are dark, dirty. Not inside but from outside, hit by the city dirt. Sometimes their landing on the street is fatal and their lives are ended by a car. Their gracefulness and matter-of-fact way in which they move is charming and the look at them is delightful. Our actors exit the narrow theatre space and our imaginations into the real city space where we will be able to observe their encounters with real swans. Should the swan in danger be lucky she will be saved.

Simona Rybáková

Simona Rybáková is a Czech textile and costume designer. She studied at the University of Applied Arts in Helsinki and Prague, and at RISD in Providence, USA. She was the Czech representative in OISTAT Executive Committee (1997-2007), and is currently the Czech delegate in the OISTAT Performance Design Committee and a member of the Costume Design Group. She is also a member of the European Film Academy. She won the PQ99 Golden Triga as a one of commissioners of the Czech national exhibition, and in 2011 she was the curator of the Extreme Costumes exhibition at PQ11. In 2014 she defended her doctoral dissertation focusing in contemporary costume designing.

Thanks to the wide scope of her education and the experiences from dance and theatre group Ballet Unit Cramp, she had a possibility to work in many different fields of costume and fashion design, where she combined a wide range of influences. Today she creates costumes for theatre, television, film, dance, concerts, site specific projects and special events, as well as displaying her work in many different exhibitions around the world.

Swan origami made especially for the Tribes project by Ondřej Cibulka.

Tribes, Czech Republik, Swans, photo: Ondřej Cibulka

Tribes, Czech Republik, Swans, photo: Ondřej Cibulka

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