WHISTLEBLOWERS

The show will be performed twice:
23 and 24 Oct, 7 pm | Boris Hristov House of Culture – Plovdiv
Tickets - Eventim.

About the show:      
What lies underneath the corporate identities of the companies whose products we buy every day? The wish to get to the meaning behind the enticing image and share it with the world is what motivates a group of young activists to gather the confidential information and reveal the criminal practices of multinational corporations. The Whistleblowers are aware that corporate influence is an octopus, which has spread its tentacles everywhere, and after their findings, things cannot continue as before. What should they do? Which is the corporation they are rebelling against?

WHISTLEBLOWERS is not just an Orwellian fantasy. It is based on actual events which reached a shocking denouement in the Swiss court in 2013. An internationally famous food chain corporation infiltrated a spy among a group of young activists. The spy feigned an interest in the group’s cause while reporting personal information about group members and their followers to the corporation. The reports contained information about still unsolved murders of members of trade unions working for the corporation in third world countries.

WHISTLEBLOWERS is a hypnotic and disturbing investigation of the corrupt, criminal practices of global brands, expressed through the means of the physical, political and documentary theater and video art. The performance uses direct quotations from the victims’ accounts, as well as from the corporate lobbyists with whom the artists met in Brussels. In this project the company makes a meticulous and uncompromising dissection of a world in which global figures, who go unpunished, play according to their own rules which infringe human and administrative laws. The show poses many questions about the influence of corporate lobbyists’ practices on the principles of democracy of western societies.

About the company:
The international theater studio FARM IN THE CAVE was established in Prague. Their work focuses on the exploration and development of the possible means of artistic expression.  Their shows use elements from different genres such as theater, dance, physical installation, musical theater, and are always the result of in-depth laboratory research on the transmission of human experience outside language and the limits of ordinary understanding. Their projects deal with the cultures of minority groups, the art of music and physical expression as well as site-specific initiatives which explore the atmosphere and the facts, linked to a certain location. In their work, the artists’ personal views and their social views of the world collide. They always seek to create a space for shared experience between the performers and the audience.  

In addition to the shows, site-specific projects, concerts, cultural research and theatrical events, FARM IN THE CAVE is also involved in educational activities. For this purpose, the company collaborates with theater academies in different cities across the Czech Republic and abroad; what is more, the members of the company have a considerable academic experience. The studio in Prague regularly plays host to international workshops, while the company also holds workshops at various festivals. FARM IN THE CAVE functions as a contemporary laboratory in which artists from different professional backgrounds find refuge for a long-term work in an international environment. The process of such an interaction does not only generate creative ideas, but also helps the performers to rediscover themselves and their attitude to the world of art.

For more than ten years, the company has been showing its productions at different festivals in over five thousand cities on three continents. FARM IN THE CAVE has received many national and international prizes, most notably the European Award for New Theatrical Realities, awarded to director Villiam Dočolomanský, who is the only Czech artist to have won the prestigious award.      

Direction, concept, choreography: Viliam Dočolomanský
Assistants to director: Eduard Prokhasko, Eliška Vavříková, Daniel Raček
Performing: Emil Leeger, Minh Hieu Nguyen, Hana Varadzinová, Anna Gromanová, Jun Wan Kim, Olda Smysl
Music: Viliam Dočolomanský, Marcel Bárta
Stage design: Lucia Škandíková
Costume design: Markéta Oslzlá
Light design: Felice Ross
Video: Erik Bartoš
Dramaturgist: Petr Michálek
Producer: Jan Valter
Co-production: Ponec Theatre - The dance Venue, Prague, Czech Republic, Truc Sphérique, Žilina, Slovakia
Photography: © Viktor Kronbauer

The performance of FARM IN THE CAVE is happening with the support of Czech Center in Sofia and The Ministry of Culture Czech Republic.