7-day Performance Art Workshop / Art Residency in Plzeň, CZ

PAS |  Performance Art Studies #99 - 'Knock, Knock! - Urban Interventions' in collaboration with NASTEVŘENO, an international festival of contemporary theatre and performance.
When: 18 – 24 May 2026

What: A 7-day learning programme offering a practical, in-depth dialogue with performance art practice in relation to space, site and intervention. Through a series of artistic and experimental exercises, participants will engage with the neighbourhood surrounding a former train station in Plzeň and develop site-specific works to be presented during the festival.

Full concept below.
Application deadline: early bird 28 April / 8 May 2026
Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, and spots are limited.
Teaching language: English
Participant age: 17-150 years old
Experience level: Tailored for beginners and professionals.

READ THE CONCEPT:

KNOCK, KNOCK!

If we are lost in a city, we usually take out our phone, check our location, type the place where we want to end up and simply follow the proposed route. Reaching the destination often becomes more important than the way itself. We follow the lines on the map and move through the urban labyrinth accordingly.

And we can assume we are not the only ones walking like this.

Others may no longer need these maps because they know their routes and shortcuts. And a cat moves through the city in a completely different manner – slipping through gaps, crossing territories and following invisible paths that humans would probably never consider.

In this course we will explore the city differently.

The term site-specific describes artistic production in close relation to a particular place. Since its emergence in performance art, the idea of the site-specific performance has influenced artistic practice and theory until today.
One could even argue that every performance is site-specific. A performance always unfolds within a spatial context and inevitably enters into a relationship with the environment in which it appears. Our bodies themselves cannot leave space – we are surrounded by it from the moment we begin to grow in the uterus.

But site-specific describes more than simply being somewhere. It is a working method – a way of researching.
Site-specific artistic research resonates with many fields beyond the arts: ecology, history, politics, social structures, human and non-human presence, memory and time. The site becomes a reservoir of diverse and seemingly endless artistic possibilities.

The dialogue between site and time plays an important role in this process. A performance created within a few hours will appear differently than one emerging from a longer process of observation and engagement. Day and night, weather, seasonal rhythms and everyday routines all shape how a site reveals itself.

Our research will take place in the neighbourhood southwest of Moving Station in Plzeň. Old villas, apartment blocks, student dormitories, temporary housing and areas of urban wilderness coexist here. The area is also inhabited by homeless communities and street cats. Different realities, rhythms and forms of life intersect within this relatively small territory.

During the course we will move through this environment as observers, listeners and performers. Through walks, exercises, discussions and artistic experiments we will investigate how a site can influence performative action and how performance can respond to the conditions of a place.

And perhaps, in this process, we will also try something simple: To knock.
To knock on spaces, situations, histories and encounters that we usually pass by.

Knock, knock! – Who is there?
Participants will develop individual or collaborative performance actions that emerge from their encounters with the site and the people, stories and presences that inhabit it.

Rather than following a predefined map, we will allow the site itself to guide the work.