Zuzana-Markéta Macková


CV
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Velvet fair 2023
Centrale Fies (Dro, Italy)
Immersive performance for 130 people, 20 min.

In 2023, I presented a 20-minute interactive performance at Centrale Fies in Dro, Italy, for an audience of approximately 130 people. The experience began in the garden, where visitors queued at a booth to receive leaflets designed in the style of Eastern European funfair brochures. Inside, they found texts addressing ADHD, cultural worker’s burnout, and the contradictions of the Eastern European economy. Along with the leaflets, participants were randomly handed 1, 2, or 3 Czech one-crown coins.

As they moved through the outdoor space, they encountered four playful yet pointed activity stations—each requiring one coin to join. At the first, they could purchase instant powdered tea. At the second, they used magnets to fish DIY creatures from a fountain, earning chewing gum as a prize. The third station offered a foam ball game aimed at toppling a pyramid of tins—deliberately designed to be unwinnable due to the lightness of the balls. The reward, nonetheless, was an inflatable flamingo. The final station hosted a one-legged jumping duel, where the winner took the loser's coin.

After 14 minutes, a child’s voice came over the loudspeakers, inviting everyone into the theatre for cake. At the door, each visitor received a paper plate printed with subtly altered lyrics from Still Alive, the closing song from the video game Portal 2. Yet instead of the promised cake, they were greeted on stage by a non-binary figure dressed in white, stiffly singing the reworked lyrics in autotune.

The piece navigated themes of scarcity, absurdity, and gamified failure—drawing attention to the mechanisms of survival within the creative and economic landscapes of Eastern Europe. By blending humor, nostalgia, and carefully orchestrated chaos, the performance pushed the audience to make compromises, confronting the limits of choice while reflecting on the weight of collective expectations.

Performers: Claudia Medeiros, Iliada Charalambous, Ros del Olmo, Sean Being, Till Langschied, Valeria Moro
Documentation: Baha Görkem Yalım

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and let’s do something together <3
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