Avant-garde and Modernism Studies | Scenography and performance space | intermedial histories of performances | Central-Eastern Europe

ORCID| Academia.edu

In his research and teaching, Martin Bernátek focuses on modern and avant-garde theatre, scenography and performance space. The book Czech theatre photography 1859-2017, written with Anna Hejmová, won the Czech Theater Newspaper Award in 2018. He studied the theory and history of theatre and the theory of interactive media at Masaryk University, Brno (CZ) where he received his Ph.D. degree in 2016 from the Department of Theatre Studies. He completed semester stays at the University of Lapland (FI) and the University of Warsaw (PL) and a work internship at the Polish Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute. He lectured at the Visegrad Seminar of the Institute of Slavic Studies at the Humboldt University in Berlin or at the Department of Theater Studies at the Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas (LT). He is a member of the Czech Society for Theatre Research, the European Association for the Study of Theater and Performance and the European Network for Avant-Garde and Modernism Studies. He collaborated on educational, popularization and dramaturgical activities with the Czech Arts and Theatre Institute, international festivals Divadelná Nitra or Prague Quadriennale. He worked on the evaluation of art and cultural policy at the National Information and Advisory Center for Culture (NIPOS), at the Brno Cultural Association and as a member of the evaluation commissions of the programs of the Czech Ministry of Culture and the Slovak Fund for the Support of the Arts.

Martin currently works on a book about an avant-garde theatre space project by Emil František Burian called “The Theatre of Labor” (1936-1939) and conducts research on transnational aspects of relations between interwar avant-gardes and workers culture in Central-Eastern Europe

Selected Publications:

Bernátek, M., E. Kubartová. “Teatrologie jako performatika”. In Koubová, Kubartová (eds.). Terény performance. Praha: NAMU, 2022, s. 24‒37.

Bernátek, M., A. Hejmová a M. Novozámská. Česká divadelní fotografie: 1859–2017 . Praha: Institut umění – Divadelní ústav, 2018.

Bernátek, M. „Theatrical Apparatus and Social Change. The Divadlo práce Project.“ In Zoltán, I. a D. Kosiński (edd.). Reclaimed Avant-garde: Spaces and Stages of Avant-garde Theatre in Central-Eastern Europe, 118–133. Warsaw: Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute, 2018.

In my research, I am concerned, above all, with the exploration of theatrical and performative cultures of Classical Antiquity and Medieval Europe. I am interested in how, in pre-modern Europe, political and cultural meanings were communicated by situated bodily actions and interactions, in which symbolic codes were embodied and materialized in various types of cultural performances. I have researched into the material and performative aspects of productions of the Roman comedy, the Coronation Order of Emperor Charles IV, and of medieval Bohemian literature (Old Czech and Latin). Another field of my interest is translation for theatre.

I graduated in Latin, Czech and English Language and Literature; received PhD degree in Theatre Studies, Masaryk University in 2017, any my dissertation was published in Czech under the title Verbum caro factum est. Fourteenth-century Bohemian Literature and Performance (2019). I have had short-term research and teaching internships at National and Kapodistrian University in Athens, University in Bergen, and other universities. I received the Evald Schorm Award for a collaborative translation of the Roman comedy Curculio. I am a member of the Societé internationale pour l’étude du théatre médieval; and a member of the Network of Research and Documentation of Ancient Greek Drama.

Currently, I have been exploring the performance and reception of the Marian Lament, a group of medieval texts spanning from scripts for (para-)liturgical performances, theatricalized or not, to devotional songs and readings. Collaborative interdisciplinary research, employing a theatre scholar, medieval music scholar, Latinist, Old Czech linguist, and Old German linguist, has been financed by the Czech Science Foundation (2021‒2023).

Selected Publications:

Poláčková, Eliška. “Planctus Mariae: Performing Compassion as a Means of Social Promotion.” Theatralia 23, no. 2 (2020): 74–91. doi:10.5817/TY2020-2-5.
﷟ „http://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/143239“
Poláčková, Eliška, and Tomáš Weissar. “Translating Curculio for Stage,” in Personaggi in scena: il parasitus, 87–102. Roma: Carocci editore, 2019.
Poláčková, Eliška. “A Prince, or a Pauper? Staging Noble Lineage in the Coronation Order of Emperor Charles IV.” European Medieval Drama 22 (2018): 149–69. doi:10.1484/J.EMD.5.119440

ORCID

Within my scholarly work, I deal with interdisciplinary overlaps of theatre studies. Specifically, socio-cultural anthropology and sociology are the study fields that I mainly incorporate into my research. This includes the borderline forms of theatre, theatricality and performativity of the protest phenomena, social movements, and public events. The last-mentioned comprises my interest in the topic of “utopian spaces,” e.g. specifically designed space for the performance of a communist utopia, as are the Cultural Houses.

In 2014, I completed my master’s degree at the Department of Theater Studies at Masaryk University with a thesis on the theatricality of the May Day communist celebrations in Czechoslovakia at the turn of the 1940s and 1950s. The thesis was then awarded the Václav Königsmark Prize in 2015. My interest in the transformation of cultural performances in the mid-1960s in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic resulted in my PhD thesis that I completed in 2021. Regarding my foreign experiences, I spent a semester at the University of Warsaw in Poland (2016) and the University of Bergen in Norway (2016). Into my other professional activities belongs the membership in Performance Studies International and the co-foundation of the Performativity Research Centre, which aims to connect scholars from various disciplines.

Also, because of our shared interest in aesthetics and politics of public space, together with colleagues from Palacký University, the University of Warsaw and Masaryk University in Brno, we established the international Josefov-Jaroměř Summer School in 2017.

Selected Publications:

Kubina, Lukáš, and Martina Musilová. “Svět je symbolická interakce: Symbolický interakcionismus jako východisko výzkumu teatrality veřejných událostí [The world as a symbolic interaction: symbolic interactionism as a starting point for the research of the theatricality of public events].” Theatralia 21, no. 1 (2018): 9–32. doi:10.5817/TY2018-1-1.
Kubina, Lukáš. “Theatrical Aspects of the Czechoslovak May Day Celebration in 1948.” In Kunderová, R. Current Challenges in Doctoral Theatre Research, 132-38. Brno: Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno, 2017.
Kubina, Lukáš. “Oslavy ‘prvního máje’ v roce 1948: Interpretativní analýza [First May Celebrations in 1948: Interpretative Analysis].” Theatralia 17, no. 1 (2014): 90–116.