Czech Center New York will participate in the international conference "Havel a naše krize" (Havel and our Crisis) which will take place at Colby College in Maine. The conference is part of a series of international conferences called "Václav Havel European Dialogues" and "Havel Albright Transatlantic Dialogues", a joint project of Czech Centres and the Václav Havel Library, organized on the occassion of the Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU. The events will take place in 21 cities in Europe and the US with the support of representations of the Czech Republic and many other local educational and cultural institutions.
The International Conference of Scholars and Leaders will take place at Colby College from September 28-30, 2022.
The topic of the conference is the current crisis of values and related issues of sustainability: values, freedom, democracy, and peace.
By invitations only.
Photo © Karel Cudlín. Images Courtesy of Václav Havel Library
More about the conference: https://havel.colby.edu/
Speakers supported by the Czech Center New York:
Martin C. Putna (1968) is a literary historian, university teacher, essayist and a former director of Vaclav Havel Presidential Library. He works at the Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague.
Michael Žantovský (1949) is a Czech diplomat, politician, writer, translator and current Executive Director of Václav Havel Library in Prague.
Side events:
1) Screening of a documentary "Art of Dissent" (Thursday, September 29 at 8:30 PM and Friday, September 30 at 5:30 PM, Ostrove Auditorium)
Introduction and Q&A with dir. James Le Sueur
The documentary The Art of Dissent (2020, 105 min., directed James Dean Le Sueur) combines rare archival footage with recent interviews filmed over three years in the Czech Republic, England, and the United States. The film was co-produced by Czech Television, on which it was aired in December 2021 to mark the 10th anniversary of Václav Havel's passing. The Czech TV archives were key in making of the film and James Dean Le Sueur worked closely with Czech TV archivist Martin Bouda to weave historical footage and contemporary interviews into a unique and compelling interplay.
More about the film here.
2) Theater Play: Václav Havel’s Audience (1975) performed by Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre (Friday, September 30 and Saturday, October 1 at 7:30-9 PM, Strider Theater)
Introduction by Miroslav Konvalina, director of Czech Center New York
The presented Audience is a Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre version of Vaclav Havel’s classic autobiographical play. Featuring live actors and traditional marionettes, the one-act play follows Ferdinand Vanek, a distinguished playwright forced to work in a brewery because his writings have been banned by the Communist regime. The play is staged with live projected close-ups of puppets from security cameras in order to suggest surveillance.
More about the event here.
Related events
Havel-Albright Transatlantic Dialogues: https://www.vaclavhavel.cz/en/#scr3
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