Sláva Daubnerová (*20 Dec 1980)
Anything but Ordinary
Sláva Daubnerová is a director and a performer that pioneered alternative approaches to theatre within Slovakia, defined new tendencies within Slovak performance art, and introduced multi-genre approach to theatre making. She is considered a pioneer of analysis of the delicate and often avoided topic of female identity within Slovak milieu. Sláva Daubnerová’s work is characterized by an undying aspiration to push conventional boundaries and provincial notions about theatre. She received and has been nominated for several awards both internationally and domestically (i.e. Golden Mask Award - nominated for Best Opera Production of the 2020/2021 season staged in Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg in 2020 under the musical direction of Valery Gergiev, Tatra banka Foundation Award for Art 2021, The Crystal Wing Award 2021 in the theater category and audiovisual art, Slovakian Minister of Culture's Prize for 2020, Young Maker [Slovak: Mladý Tvorca] Tatrabanka Award in 2013, Dosky Award for Best Production in 2013 for her performance Untitled, Dosky Award for Best New Artist in 2012 for her performance Untitled).
Sláva Daubnerová’s productions have represented Slovak independent theatre at the most prestigious domestic theatre festivals (e.g. New Drama festival [Slovak: Nová Dráma], The International Festival Divadelná Nitra, or Eurokontext, Opera Nova) as well as being shown at international festivals and showcases abroad (e.g. USA, UK, Russia, Italy, Germany, Poland, South Korea, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Hungary, Croatia, and Armenia).
Solo Performance
Despite having previously graduated with a theoretical Masters degree in cultural science from Comenius University in Bratislava in 2004, she completed her PhD thesis entitled Performance and Performative Tendencies in Contemporary Theatre under the supervision of Prof. PhDr. Jana Wild, PhD at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava in 2012. Daubnerová disrupts the traditional model of theatre makers within Slovakia that follow in their teachers’ footsteps. Instead, she frees herself from scholarly routine andexperiments with new possibilities and theatre approaches. She is familiar with modern theatre concepts and experiments with them and tests them through her work. Fieldwork research is often the first creative step in every new performance she makes - she moves from a thorough understanding of the topic area to her final original artistic account.
As a self-made artist, Daubnerová has chosen a solitary approach both in her solo performance as well as in her theatre and opera direction by approaching her productions from a personal and authentic point of view - often by ignoring mainstream genre boundaries and risking critical reception.
Sláva Daubnerová occupies a prominent place in establishing performance as a genre in the Slovak milieu. She began outside of the ordinary framework of theatre companies and has always been an independent artist. Daubnerová originated from a local amateur theatre context that was too restricting for her - her complex and conceptual approach to thinking required professional involvement to manifest fully. Consequently, she decided to establish a theatre platform (P.A.T) under which she functioned as an author, performer, and producer, which allowed her as an independent female artist to establish herself within the male-dominated context of Slovak theatre. She gradually developed a name for herself that guarantees a unique experience both in terms of her approaches to materials and topics as well as aesthetic vocabulary.
Daubnerová’s work can be divided into several phases - the first being her development from amateur contexts to professional theatre that is defined by uniqueness and refusal to fit into established trends and quality standards. Her pioneering tendency can be seen in staging the first and to this day perhaps only adaptation of Heiner Müller’s play Hamletmachinethat set a new standard in terms of Slovak independent theatre. Daubnerová emphasized the role and importance of new technology and media and challenged the established dynamic of director-actor driven theatre by acting both as the performer and the author in this work. Hamletmachinewas a breakthrough both in terms of her future creative work and subsequent professional tendency since it marked the start of a creative part as both the author and the performer for Daubnerová. Additionally, Hamletmachineforced theatre criticism within Slovakia to develop new critical approaches since it exposed its vocabulary, which had been used primarily for interpreting traditional theatre, as insufficient. The gradual and tepid reception of Sláva Daubnerová’s work affirmed the unpreparedness of Slovak theatre scene to novel tendencies. Her work, however, refused to budge and so Slovak theatre had to turn towards a different direction - towards a dialogue with contemporary European performance studies.
Her gradually growing reputation within the domestic context was outmatched by immensely positive reception at international festivals that allowed Daubnerová to gain wider international attention. Other than presenting her work abroad, she has also attended several residencies in Germany, France, and Poland that contributed to clarifying her unique aesthetics in relation to international contexts (The Grotowski Institute in Wroclaw in 2011, Le Tas de Sable in Ches Panses Vertes, Amiens in 2011, Internationales Forum Theatretreffen in Berlin in 2011). Other than creating her original performance, Daubnerová has also made and contributed to festivals and various artistic projects where she acted either as a performer, actor, or director.
In terms of performance art, Daubnerová established her firm position within Slovak performance context through her various solo performances that continuously explored the topic of woman artistic identity in the context of patriarchal stereotyping. Her performances are inspired by the work and lives of important women artists (Louise Bourgeois, Magda Husáková-Lokvencová, and Francesca Woodman) that Daubnerová deployed in order to analyse women’s culturally contingent role in art and their constant battles with traditional conception of women’s place within culture using sensitive and suggestive manipulation of authentic materials (such as Woodman’s photographs, Bourgeois’ sculptures, or Husáková-Lokvencová’s writings). Daubnerová employs these through novel approaches that combine allusions of authenticity with documentary precision and unique readings of historical contexts that she juxtaposes in contrast with contemporary social climate.
Daubnerová’s performance M.H.L.contributed to the rehabilitation of the first professional Slovak theatre director Magda Husáková-Lokvencová. Daubnerová also gained respect with theatre critics and theatre community through M.H.L.- one could even say she became a “favourite” of Slovak alternative performance thanks to the performance’s acclaim. Daubnerová’s subsequent solo performance Untitledwon several awards and saw Daubnerová become the foremost independent performer within Slovak theatre context.
The year 2020, however, marked a decisive change in her artistic career since she gave a definitive farewell to her solo performance career. Daubnerová’s final performance Masterpieceis an intimate and exposed confession of an artist who had dedicated her life to professional theatre making - without any pathos or embellishments, she unapologetically confides in the audience about the toll her artistic ambitions have taken on her life. Daubnerová employed all her aesthetic strengths - from use of the body, through sensitive symbiosis with multimedia technology, all the way to her matter-of-fact approach to acting.
Ever since Masterpiece, Daubnerová exclusively has defined herself as a theatre and opera director where she collaborates with exceptional set designers and contributes her experience with choreography to her opera productions.
Theatre
Daubnerová has been increasingly invited to participate in theatre projects in recent years. For instance, Daubnerová’s production of Twilight of Alpha Males (CZ: Soumrak samců) staged in Hadivadlo in Brno saw her as the author of her original directorial concept, as well as confident collaborator with the theatre company that she led to a suggestive, original, and dramatic artistic account.
Daubnerová’s controversial reflection on the Slovak National Uprising, one of the defining events of Slovak history, in a production of Uprising(SK: Povstanie) sparked a discussion about the extent to which artistic productions should critically challenge conventionally idealized historically interpretations of the Slovak National Uprising. Even though the production did not receive critical acclaim, Daubnerová as the director took it as a signal to continue developing her unique artistic style that is based on challenging traditional interpretation of canonical pieces and by doing so opened new lines of inquiry that the topic or piece offers.
Daubnerová has been invited to direct internationally as well as domestically. She has been gradually establishing herself on the international scene - especially in German theatre: for instance, in Karlsruhe where she directed Elfriede Jelinek’s Am Königsweg, or her ongoing collaboration with the same theatre on George Sand’s Gabriel (2022).
Opera
Daubnerová’s expansive creativity is fully demonstrated in opera, which as a genre exists at the intersection of music and theatre. Opera’s synthetic mixture of music and theatre harmonically corresponds with Daubnerová’s poetics and tendencies of reading against the grain of traditional interpretation.
Sláva Daubnerová has so far directed five opera productions. Except for her debut in opera in Slovak composer’s Marek Piaček’s chamber docu-opera 66 Seasons (SK:66 Sezón) (Košice, 2013), all her operas were staged in the National Theatre Opera in Prague. Daubnerová is one of the few opera directors to have worked on all various stages of Prague’s National Theatre, all of which present unique dramaturgical and spectatorial challenges and opportunities.
Her first production in Prague received praise both from critics and audience. Other than demonstrating her rare sense for tragicomedy, Daubnerová deployed her ability to read between the lines of musical partiture and look for hidden points that she would transform into original and visually unique scenic metaphors in her production of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Orango/Anti-Formalist Rayok(CZ: Orango/Antiformalistický Jarmok, 2014). This is especially visible in Anti-Formalist Rayokthat Shostakovich composed as a protest against coercive and primitive aesthetic dogmatism of socialist realism, which in Daubnerová’s direction became an ageless symbolism of how ‘omnipotent idiots get to decide over art’.
Her interpretation of Charles Gounod’s lyrical tragic opera Romeo and Juliet (CZ:Romeo a Julie; FR: Roméo et Juliette, 2015) was inspired by Edumand Goulding’s movie Grand Hotel(1932). Daubnerová positioned the story of Romeo and Juliet within a hotel in Verona in the 1930s where the drama of an innocent couple happened in the background of a conflict between two mafia families. Despite the ambiguous reception, Daubnerová’s interpretation of the canonical piece demonstrated her ability to track nuances within the musical score that allow her to clearly profile and meaningfully develop all (not just main) characters within culturally legible human stereotypes and define clear motivations behind their actions, all of which add to the plasticity of the plot.
Her production of Leoš Janáček’s fantastic opera The Excursions of Mr. Brouček (CZ: Výlety páně Broučkovy, 2018) was built on the dominance of a unique visual vocabulary which was composed of approaches from conceptual and object-based art and inspirations from visual art history (especially René Magritte). The production was defined by ‘wandering through a metaphorical space where we explore the questions of the meaning of art and national identity’.[1]Both parts of the opera were staged in the unwelcoming but clean quasi white cube gallery space: The Excursion to Moonwas framed as the stone age, while The Excursion to 15th Centurywas the bronze age. Daubnerová’s interpretation was visibly acting as a socio-political critique and a slightly ironic re-framing of Czech mythology that could be seen for instance in the director’s courageous approach to canonical visual iconographies.
So far, the last in her collection of opera pieces produced in Prague is Lolita(2019) composed by contemporary Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin. As a director, Daubnerová added a purely woman’s point of view to the masculinist readings of the controversial story of a relationship between a middle-aged man and an adolescent girl. Daubnerová achieved this through her interpretation of the relationship between the main characters and through aesthetic conceptualisation that did not swerve away from visually expressive or erotically charged scenes. Daubnerová did not accept Humbert’s projection of Lolita as a demon in the form of a little girl. Instead, she refused to doubt Humbert's guilt and portrayed him as a careless egoist and inconspicuous pervert. She did not, however, detract from Lolita’s provocativeness, but did not use it as an excuse for Humbert’s actions. Another central topic of Daubnerová’s interpretation of Shchedrin’s opera was a warning to society’s indifference that serves as fertile soil for similar tragedies. Her interpretation can be viewed as an eloquent artistic addition to the current socio-political discourse about sex abuse.
The morally appealing production of Lolita opened doors for Daubnerová outside of the former Czechoslovakia when it was staged in Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg in 2020 to great acclaim under the musical direction of Valery Gergiev. The production was featured as a part of the Golden Mask 2021 festival at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow and received several nominations, including best opera production of 2020/2021. Her latest productions include Puccini ‘ s Tosca at the Staatstheater Kassel (2021) and Salome at the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe (2022).
Mgr. Art (MA) Eva Kyselová, PhD, theatre scholar, lecturer at Department of Theory and Criticism, DAMU Prague
Mgr. Michaela Mojžišová, PhD, opera historian, critic, researcher as Institute of Theatre and Film Research, CVU SAV Bratislava
AWARDS AND NOMINATIONS
Received The Crystal Wing Award 2021 in the theater category and audiovisual art for her the author’s production of Masterpiece.
Received a a theatre award from Tatra banka Foundation Award for Art 2021 for directing, script and performance in her production Masterpiece.
Received the Slovakian Minister of Culture's Prize for 2020 for exceptional contribution in the field of contemporary theater and dance with reference to the extraordinary works Masterpiece and Lolita.
Nominated for a Golden Mask 2020/2021 Award for Best Opera Production for her production of Lolita at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg.
Nominated for a theatre award from Tatra banka Foundation Award for Art 2017 for her direction and script of Singing House (SK: Spievajúci dom).
Nominated for a Dosky Award for Best Set Design in 2017 for Sláva Daubnerová’s original play Singing House.
Received the students’ choice award at the Nová Dráma/New Drama festival in 2016 for her production of Solo Lamentoso.
Nominated for a theatre award from Tatra banka Foundation Award for Art 2016 for the direction and script of Solo Lamentoso.
Nominated for a Dosky Award for Best Production of 2016 for her production of Solo Lamentoso.
Nominated for a Dosky Award for Best Direction of 2016 for her production of Solo Lamentoso.
Received a Dosky Award for Best Production of 2013 for her production of Untitled.
Nominated for a Dosky Award for Best Female Performance of 2013 for Untitled.
Received a theatre award from Tatra Banka Arts Foundation in 2013 in the Young Maker category for her direction and performance in Untitled.
Received the Annual Literary Fond Award in the Theatre category in 2013 for her direction of Untitled.
Received a Dosky Award for Discovery of the Season in 2010 for her production of M.H.L.
Nominated for a Dosky Award for Best Production of 2010 for her documentary monodrama M.H.L.
Received the Annual Literary Fond Award in the Theatre category for her direction of M.H.L. and performance as Magda Husáková-Lokvencová.
Received the Panel’s Special Choice Award at the Nová Dráma/New Drama Festival in 2007 for direction and set design concept of Cells.
SELECTED WORKS:
OPERA (premiere dates)
Badiches Staatstheater Karlsruhe: Richard Strauss: Salome, 14 May, 2022 (conducted by G. Fritzsch)
Staatstheater Kassel: Giacomo Puccini: Tosca, 25 September, 2021 (conducted by F.Angelico)
The Mariinsky Theatre: Rodion Shchedrin: Lolita, 13 and 15 February, 2020 (conducted by V. Gergiev)
The National Theatre Prague (The Estates Theatre): Rodion Shchedrin: Lolita, 3 and 5 October, 2019 (conducted by Sergey Neller)
The National Theatre Prague: Leoš Janáček: Excursions of Mr.Brouček, 23 and 25 April, 2018 (conducted by Jaroslav Kyzlink)
The State Opera Prague: Charles Gounod: Romeo and Juliette, 21 and 23 April 21, 2016 (conducted by Marco Guidarini)
The State Theatre Košice /ASD in the frame of Košice 2013 European Capital Of Culture: Marek Piaček: 66 seasons, 14 and 15 December, 2013 (conducted by Marián Lejava)
The New Stage of the National Theatre Prague: Dmitri Shostakovich: Orango/ Antiformalist Rayok, 17 December, 2014 (conducted by Jan Kučera)
DRAMA (premiere dates)
Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe: George Sand: Gabriel, 15 April, 2022
Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe: Elfriede Jelinek: Am Königsweg, 24 November, 2018
The Slovak National Theatre Bratislava: Sláva Daubnerová: The Singing house, 27 and 28 May, 2017
The Slovak National Theatre Bratislava: Collective of Authors: The Ten Commandments(S.Daubnerová - Honour Thy Father and Thy Mother), 31 May, 2014
The Aréna Theatre Bratislava: Collective of Authors: Uprising, 28 August, 2014
HaDivadlo Brno: Sláva Daubnerová: Twilight of Males, 5 October, 2012
PERFORMANCE ART(premiere dates)
Sláva Daubnerová: Masterpiece, 11 September, 2020
Sláva Daubnerová: Solo lamentoso, 18 December, 2015
Sláva Daubnerová: Untitled, 10 December, 2012
Sláva Daubnerová: Iluminarium (Cabinet of curious Phenomena),16December, 2011
Sláva Daubnerová & Pavel Graus: Some Disordered Interior Geometries, 2 November, 2011
Sláva Daubnerová: M.H.L.,22 December, 2009
Sláva Daubnerová: Polylogue, 23 August, 2008
Heiner Müller: Hamletmachine,1 June, 2007
Sláva Daubnerová: Cells, 16 September, 2006
STUDIES
Jana Wild: Daubnerová’s Ninth
Andrej Samuel Čermák: Lonely Lamentations: Feminisms in Slovak Performance Through the Work of Sláva Daubnerová
Katarína K. Cvečková: Sláva Daubnerová and her Path to her Masterpiece
Soňa Šimková: The original route of Sláva Daubnerová or the magic of theatre Ingenious way
Dagmar Podmaková: Theatrical documentary of performance art
[1]Daubnerová, Sláva in Mili LOSMANOVÁ, ‘Mou snahou je využít surrealistický charakter Janáčkovy opery’ in Národní divadlo, Issue. 7, March 2018, p. 25. [‘My goal is to use the surrealist character of Janáček’s opera’ in National Theatre]