#2
SUMMER SCHOOL
The second edition of the intensive summer workshop, led by the D’epog ensemble and director Lucia Repašská, focused on vocal performative action and the musicality of stage performance. The workshop featured Iva Bittová, an internationally acclaimed Czech singer, violinist, and actress, as the guest instructor.
Participation in the workshop offered a comprehensive insight into the working methods of the D’epog ensemble. Each year, participants had the opportunity to explore the basics of performer training under the individual guidance of the instructors, and to experience the journey from the emergence of a psycho-physical impulse to the realization of a fixed action. This hands-on introduction to the ensemble’s work also provided the best pathway to establishing long-term collaborative relationships.
Iva Bittová
Ranks among the most acclaimed names on the scene of Czech alternative music. She collaborated with the Brno Radio Orchestra of Folk Instruments, was a member of the theatre Husa na provázku (Goose on a String), where she particularly distinguished herself playing the role of Eržika in the production of Balada pro banditu and since 1984 she has been performing as a singer and violinist with her own songs based on folk lyrics and also with the well-known Brno group Dunaj and later on with Skampa Quartet.
Her musical activities range from her own interpretations of folk songs, through experimental jazz and rock, to violin adaptations of classical music and operatic singing. In 2004 she performed at New York’s Carnegie Hall in the role of Elvira in Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni. She followed up on this collaboration by several concerts with the local group Bang On A Can All Stars, which culminated in a release of the album Elida. She gave concerts and worked together with such figures and ensembles as Bobby McFerrin, Calder Quartet, George Mraz, Hamit Drake, Jiří Bulis, Jiří Stivín, Lisa Moore, Marc Ribot, Phil Milton, Richard Müller, Solamente Naturali, Susumu Yokota, Skampa Quartet, Tom Cora and Vladimír Godár. She also participates in various performance-oriented projects.
At the age of eighteen she starred in her first film, Růžové sny (Rose Tinted Dreams, 1976, dir. Dušan Hanák). Two years later she attracted attention by her performance in Balada pro banditu (Ballad for a Bandit, 1978, dir. Vladimír Sís). Her next major role was in the Academy Award-nominated film Želary (2003, dir. Ondřej Trojan). He most recent success was the film Tajnosti (Little Girl Blue, 2007, dir. Alice Nellis), in which she played a woman who, over the course of one day, fundamentally changes her life.