KORNÉL MUNDRUCZÓ (Proton Theatre)

There are currently plenty of negativities to face worldwide. Nearly in each sector. Culture is no exception. And within the most vivid, but also most fragile part, the independent field. It’s crises, just like of plenty other fields won’t end with the virus.

But let’s try to focus on positivities. Since as bigger the limitation, as bigger the celebration. Before the virus we maybe were tired, wished the world to slow down, so we can have a break. Now we use every minute and possibility to work. We work while keeping the distance, in a genre which is totally physical, while wearing masks and not seeing the faces, the mimics of each other, while constantly disinfecting and testing. Awkward conditions. Doctors and politicians above art. But we are happy that we can do it. Already simply working got a triumph. Working without knowing whether there will be a premier and if yes, when also means without production pressure. It’s a chance to find the roots of creation again. We finally have the time to stop, to live in the moment, to experience the beauty of it. Alone, but also together with our colleagues. We learned that it can be valid to perform without an audience. We are not anymore doing it for the premier, but to ease the hunger. An intrinsic motivation, a need, a must to create, without knowing what the future of the creation will be. An uplifting feeling. Art for art. Exactly what the essence of art should be. Art has to be superfluous to be real, to be true art. When this is done we can start finding the way back to the audience or better to say to each other. The desire on the side of the artist, appears also on the side of the spectator. Going to the cinema, the theatre or a concert is not the rule anymore, but the exception. Our special moment. Our common ritual. A reunion. And we are closer to each other than ever before.

I would like to see 2020 as a possibility. Despite all bad things happened, it is definitely a chance to return to the basis of art. In a free fall losing the existential and finding the essence.