Between Us
This time with twenty-year-old Barbora Hozáková, who is completing her first year of studies at the Department of Authorial Creativity and Pedagogy (KATaP) at DAMU, whose educational approach forms one of the foundations of our work at TALENT.
I’m Returning to Where I Began
I have known Bára since she was twelve years old. Although she spent four years with us, she was always more drawn to large stages, dramatic acting, and singing. That is why I was all the more surprised when she wrote to me last summer to say that she was about to begin studying Authorial Creativity and Performance at KATaP.
PROCESS AND EXPLORATION
When you arrived for this interview, you said that after six months you were beginning to understand what studying at KATaP is really about. What is starting to open up for you?
The concrete meaning of what we are doing. In my first semester, I was quite lost. We had psychosomatic disciplines such as movement, speech, acting fundamentals, authorial reading, and dialogical acting. But they weren’t connected into a larger context, and no one explained why we were doing them. We weren’t even told about Ivan Vyskočil, who founded the department. Only after half a year of study am I beginning to understand it. I am starting to find my own sense of meaning as a creator. Since the summer semester, we have lectures where a teacher from each psychosomatic discipline comes to talk about their subject. They probably do it intentionally—to let us discover things on our own first, because that is what the department is based on. Everyone should discover things for themselves.
What kept you in the programme?
My curiosity and my belief that I want to figure it out. It is a long process, but it is the right one for me. The study does not develop me only as an actor, but also as a human being. A person can only change when they accept the process and allow themselves to go deeper into themselves and explore. Instead of asking: “What am I doing here?”, they can start to benefit from it.
What is KATaP like?
The warmest department at DAMU that I could have encountered during the entrance exams. Everyone was open and approached the applicants with respect. Above all, they are looking for the person in you.
What did you say at the entrance exams when asked about your motivation for applying to the programme?
That I want to act. Acting is my passion. But I don’t want to be just an actress. I am also drawn to authorial creation—the desire to write and to create. I don’t feel like a finished person. I want to continue learning, discovering, understanding, and finding myself.
How do you perceive performance (the result) and the process after one year of study?
At the beginning, I was afraid that in acting fundamentals we would be under pressure to deliver performance in terms of how we act. Not at all. From the very start, they have been instilling in us that it is about process—about searching for different ways of finding your own path. Performance and outcome are not what is expected from us. What is expected is the path toward them. We have a brilliant voice teacher, Ivana Vostárková. Once she asked me what my relationship with voice work was. I said: “I like practising vocal technique.” She looked at me and said: “No, not at all. Technique and practising?” It is precisely with the voice that I have made the biggest progress. I realised that the voice has to happen. First there has to be a thought, and only then can I open my mouth. My perspective is changing.
What about you and the pressure of performance?
I feel pressure inside myself to prove that I am a good actress, successful, that everything has worked out for me. But it is getting better. I calm myself with the question: do you want to be a good person or a good actress? I don’t want to lose myself.
Play, acting, and playing as playfulness—how do you see it?
Playing with yourself or with the process. I have let go of the idea that I am “acting theatre” in the sense of performing and presenting. Above all, it has to be enjoyable. The phrase “to play” is often used at the department. It is about searching for truth, never about pretending. In “playing”, the search for truth is already inherently present, and then something emerges from the process.
THE PATH TO AUTHORSHIP
Can you describe your journey?
Over my life I went through many drama clubs. At Talent, I discovered authorial acting. Back then, I was too young to fully absorb it. When I left you, I needed to do classical theatre. I joined a drama club where we worked on traditional repertoire theatre. I also tried entrance exams for acting programmes. The preparation for the auditions exhausted me. I felt I didn’t have the personality for it, that I couldn’t handle the pressure or deliver a performance. Before the auditions I would wake up and cry. How do you quickly impress a jury? With what? That I am a good actress? That I can handle the pressure? I left unhappy. I didn’t even make it to the second round. I told myself: “Okay, this is not my path. But what am I going to do?”
I had also applied to KATaP. I came to the entrance exams and they asked me why I wanted to study there. I felt a genuine interest from their side. I also liked the department’s focus on me as an author with a point of view that I want to share. My primary motivation, however, was that I wanted to act, and KATaP was another department where I could study acting.
During the entrance exams, I kept asking myself: “Am I betraying myself, the department, or my understanding of acting? Is it strange that I am coming back?” I felt unsettled. In the second round of the admissions process, I was struck by the final task. They asked me to perform the three pillars of my life. I felt that I could be honest and truthful, and offer something of myself that might interest others. That convinced me.
My path has been a return to where I started. At first, I didn’t like authorial creation, so I moved towards classical acting, and now I am coming back again.
What do you enjoy most about your studies?
The teachers. They are excellent at guiding us, offering possibilities, and creating a good environment for discovery. Among the subjects, I like authorial reading. We bring our own texts to class, three people read them aloud, and the rest of us give feedback. We support each other. It is a strong, concentrated creative environment. But what I enjoy the most is voice training with Vostárková. It is wisdom after wisdom, all of which she arrived at through her own exploration.
What is your relationship to Dialogical Acting?
Over time I am discovering how complex it is. Therapeutic. How much a person can discover within a small space of three minutes. How one connects with oneself. It is not about getting better over time, or producing a better result, but about becoming closer to oneself. It is like a workshop where a person is making something, but does not need to have a finished product. It is enough just to be there, and something will happen.
Could a psychosomatic approach to acting be the future of its study?
There must be love and joy in acting. What is art about? Being together and spreading awareness. Communicating what interests us. We have a student in our English programme from Taiwan, who made a successful film there. In Taiwan he is a complete star, but he is not carried away by it at all. He wants to study at our department because it preserves the essence of love in creation.
Do you see points of connection between KATaP and TALENT drama studio?
They are based on the same idea: freedom, exploration, and not focusing on performance. Not many children’s studios work with this concept. But it is precisely this approach that awakens children’s desire to create. It develops them more than simply acting out roles.
Kdybys měla popsat člověku, který neví, co je KATaP?
Odborně řečeno je to katedra výzkumu psychosomatických disciplín, kde se rozvíjí autorské herectví. Svými slovy, kde se člověk rozvíjí jako autor, musí být otevřený poznávat procesy v sobě, rozvíjet se a měnit zajeté postupy. Katedra na přelomu mezi studiem disciplíny herectví a studiem sebe. Mezi tím balancuje a závisí, co si jde člověk hledat. Je to katedra o hledání.
PAST AND FUTURE
What are your ideas about your future?
This is the only thing I am afraid of. It is nice that I allow myself time to mess around and explore. But what will I do? How will I earn money so I can afford to live somewhere once I finish my studies? I try to accept that right now I am focusing on myself, giving myself space to simply be, and that later I will deal with what I will do. I still have a dream of becoming an actress—acting in films, going to Karlovy Vary, winning a Czech Lion, acting at the National Theatre, being in a permanent ensemble. That would be beautiful. But I also see my path in writing. I like writing poetry. I would like to create my own play, to create and communicate my own themes. I am also drawn to pedagogy. After DAMU, I could imagine studying Czech or history, or teaching artistic subjects. I might try screenwriting at FAMU as well. I definitely want to continue studying after DAMU. I may combine different paths.
What are you preparing for this year’s juries?
I would like to work on one of my favourite themes: unhappy relationships that didn’t work out. I tend to dwell in sadness when something doesn’t succeed. I would create a journey through what I have experienced. I would divide it into categories based on poems I have written. For each poem, I would create a situation—small micro-stories. I would buy five raspberries and wear two white T-shirts. After finishing each story, I would put a raspberry on my finger and smear it onto the T-shirt. By the time I finish all the stories, the T-shirt would be stained with raspberries. In the end, I would take it off and underneath I would have a clean white T-shirt. A new beginning. When something gets stained, you can take it off and start again with a clean slate.
This year at TALENT we are creating individual authorial performances—stand-ups. Some people are struggling with it a lot.
That’s brilliant. Of course they are struggling. I think I will also feel frustrated when I start preparing my own piece. People often have big expectations at the beginning. They say: I’ll write a script, direct it myself, and perform it. But then you are truly on your own in it. And when you get into a dead end, you have to find your way out yourself. But the creative process is great. It is not a reproduction of something. You are the author yourself. You create a theme that resonates with you. It is automatically deep, because it is yours.
How do you remember TALENT?
Since I returned to authorial creation, I think about TALENT more often. About the collective. About the phases when we were at Mana and at Vzlet. About Dialogical Acting, or the performance about casting we created during COVID. About the great improvisations in the church that you led with Jirka. Sometimes I wish I could go back with the perspective I have now. I would tell my younger self that what she is doing is okay, that she is on the right path. That she should allow herself to play, to mess around, to explore, and not overthink it. But it is also good that I left. Maybe I would not have found my way to authorship otherwise.
GLOSSARY OF KATaP
I’ll give you the final questions. Try to reflect on terms that are typical for KATaP. Text delivery.
A personal way of communicating words, or a theme through words. The aim is for the delivery to be authentic, to preserve the idea of the text, and for the text not to lose its value through my interpretation—in some cases, even to gain additional value.
Voice and voice training.
The voice is for me the essence of a person and their identity. There is truth in the voice. Our inner world is reflected in it. If we focus on it, we reveal ourselves more. It is not about singing well, but about being honest. That is what the voice reveals. The voice can be studied, stereotypes can be discovered, and changed. For me, the voice is fundamental.
Body and movement?
It is about searching for an honest, crystalline neutrality. Noticing stereotypes in how we normally behave, and bringing truth into the body. Not being rigid, but exploring oneself. Body and movement are about thoughts, imagination, and how a person perceives themselves. The body as an instrument.
Authorship
A reflection of oneself. How I see the world, why I say what I say. Authenticity. Being aware of myself and how I do things. Authorship is the essence of me in the world.
Theatre
A place where something can emerge, where a person can change, and realise something. A place where people should go in order to continuously develop and draw from one another. A place of creation—not of applause, but of something coming into being. For me, theatre is a space of a creative process that should be unstoppable.
Personality-based acting
A way to improve—or rather change—the world. Playing. How I can become a better person because I do not take myself too seriously. I allow myself not to follow a predefined path. A reflection on what the world around us is. The art of playing with oneself.
MESSAGE TO CHILDREN
If you could give a message to children and young people...
Don’t worry if you feel like you’re going around in circles. It’s okay to be searching. But never stop wanting to explore and discover. Stay curious and trust yourselves. Not in the simple sense of: ‘Believe in yourself, you can do it.’ Rather, trust that what you want to express has value. Because it only needs to have value for you. If you believe in it and it matters to you, it will matter to others as well. And if you ever feel that it doesn’t, it will always matter to you. The most important thing is to be present with yourself—not to abandon yourself, not to leave yourself behind. When I feel lost, I am lost together with myself. So I am never truly alone. All it takes is the desire to understand yourself
Thank you for the interview.
Erika Merjavá
