Kristýna Bartošová is a Czech filmmaker based in Prague. Her feature-length documentary debut The Dangerous World of Doctor Dolecek travelled through several international festivals and received two awards for the best Czech documentary and two prizes in international competitions. She collaborates with many artists on different audio-visual projects. With musicians and dancers she created five short dance films. In her theoretical thesis at FAMU she tried to categorize dance films from the perspective of filmmaker and film language. Nowadays she is preparing her second feature-length documentary about disappearing bees and rise of the new technologies at the cost of loosing the relationship with nature; the film is called Human Beeing. Some of Kristýna’s films or trailers can be viewed here.

Podcast with Kristýna was recorded on 9 January 2020 via Skype. It was edited and produced on the Gadigal land of Eora nation, traditional custodians of the land on which we live, work, and dance. We pay our respect to their elders, past present and emerging.

Podcast image is by Lena Kramaric.
Music used is by Trevor Brown.

Artemis Projects production, commissioned by Delving into Dance and Critical Path for the Interchange Festival.

Podcast with Kristýna Bartošová (full transcript)

Ira Ferris: What are the first three words that come to your mind when you think about dance?

Kristýna Bartošová: Freedom. Passion. Energy.

Ira Ferris: And what is your personal relationship to dance? I know that your practice is in filmmaking and mainly it is documentary filmmaking and then you branched into making dance videos. So, I am curious to know what is your relationship to dance from early on, from your childhood to now?

Kristýna Bartošová: My parents danced when they were young. That's actually how they met. And I always loved dancing since childhood, but I never did dancing because I was busy with some other things. So, I started to dance when I was 17, I started to do it a bit but obviously it was too late to do it seriously. Then I started to watch dance in theatres and when I first saw a dance movie, I realized that I can dance through the film, that it can be a different platform for realizing the dance. And actually my first movie was a dance film. I made a dance film first and then I applied for documentary filmmaking at school. Yeah, it was always my hobby and dream to dance and film was the way to manifest this dream.

Ira Ferris: So, in your dance films, it is you who dances?

Kristýna Bartošová: No, no, not at all. No, never. [laughs] No, I would never try to dance in front of the camera. But I can dance with the camera. Because I think that dance films don't necessarily need to have a physical body. You can dance through the images and editing and the motion of the camera.

Ira Ferris: I am imagining you are inspired, when you say that, by David Hinton because he has films in which there are no physical bodies dancing?

Kristýna Bartošová: Yes, David Hinton is my very big inspiration since the beginning. Actually, it was his movie, the first dance movie I saw. And I met him nine years ago at a dance film workshop in Prague. It was the first time I met him and since then I've worked with him twice on the workshops and I worked with him through Erasmus helping him with some research for some movies. And I am still in touch with him. I wrote a theoretical thesis about him and I'm very much inspired by his thoughts on films without dancers and what a dance film is. So, yes, it's David Hinton.

Ira Ferris: And why wouldn't you dance in your films? What stops you from it?

Kristýna Bartošová: I think for me, it's enough to concentrate on camera and what's happening in front of it. And it wouldn't be even physically possible, I think, to be in front of the camera and... I mean, it is physically possible, but it's way too much. I prefer to concentrate on what's behind the camera.

Ira Ferris: What are the places that you may find yourself dancing in?

Kristýna Bartošová: I think my problem is that I don't dance enough anymore. If I think about it, I almost don't dance at all. And I think that I miss it.

Ira Ferris: You say 'any more', does that mean that you have danced in the past?

Kristýna Bartošová: Yes. Yes. I danced is some courses and then I was of course dancing at home very often but I stopped doing it. I don't know why.

Ira Ferris: And when you say you miss it, what is it that you miss? What was dance giving you that you feel like you may be lacking now?

Kristýna Bartošová: I think it's mainly freedom. Just letting your body do whatever and have fun. It's this, you know, situation when you don't control so much what you are doing and you just enjoy the movement.

Ira Ferris: Spaces feature as almost a character in your films. Especially in your film Split Structures. There seems to be a focus on the relationship between the body and the space, if I'm looking at it and interpreting it in a right way. If there is a right way? Is that something that is of interest to you, the relationship between body and the space?

Kristýna Bartošová: I don't think that it was our main focus. Actually, for us in this movie the space is a metaphor of inner space. For us the idea was based on schizophrenia or some kind of inner talks. You know, we all I think, well, I believe have this inner dialogue with ourselves and the space in the film is a metaphor for what's happening in your head. So, we didn't think about the space in a real ‘space’ meaning.

Ira Ferris: But more like a reflection of oneself?

Kristýna Bartošová: Yeah, it should reflect the inner feelings. This claustrophobic space is really about anxiety.

Ira Ferris: What does concept 'spatial awareness' signify to you? This idea that as we occupy this world, we are aware of the spaces that we inhabit and we pay attention to the space. I’m asking this because one of the things that I got from being trained in dance, and I only realized that later when I reflected on it, is that I'm aware of space. You know, when I stand in the space, I'm aware of where is the corner, where is the table, where another person in the space may be, I'm maybe aware of the sounds in the space. In short, I am aware of my body's existence in the space and I'm wondering if that's something that I would be less aware of if I haven't had this training. Because it's one of the things that as a dancer you constantly need to be conscious of, because you need to make sure you don't hit something in the space, or someone, when you move.

Kristýna Bartošová: Yeah, I remember that we talked about this in some dance courses I did. But it's not something that I would be normally aware of at all. I think that generally my problem is that I'm constantly a little bit out of my body and even less in control of the outer space. So, I think we should all be much more trained in this because I think it's something that I miss in my life.

Ira Ferris: Well, it's something that can be developed anytime in life and I guess one of the takes that I have on approaching this topic - Why Dance Matters Now - is exactly that: coming to the awareness of our bodies, moving away from being in our heads all the time. I think that the reason and the cerebral have failed us in some ways, and I'm thinking that we need to return to the feeling, and feeling is in our bodies, not in our brains. And I feel that by feeling your body and then feeling your body's relationship to the space, maybe we would be more environmentally conscious.

Kristýna Bartošová: I absolutely agree. I think that we started to live much more in our heads than in other parts of the body and all the senses are just here to help us get our brain from one point to another, from one space to another space. But we don't use the senses at all for anything else. And I think it's horrible. We are losing the connection with the world generally, with the nature. Especially now when we all live very much in a digital world. We are losing this connection with what's outside and it's terrible. That's actually a topic of my next documentary.

Ira Ferris: What is the next documentary about?

Kristýna Bartošová: It's about how we are losing the connection with nature, how we've stopped understanding the nature. As you were talking about indigenous people who understood the forest in Australia and how to treat them, how to prevent these fires. This is exactly what's happening. We lost this wisdom which was built on the connection with nature, how we understood the nature, and we've replaced it with the new technologies and all of these, you know, inventions. We've stopped believing in nature and we started to believe in our technologies, and it's very scary because we are losing something very, very important. And the fires in Australia I think are just the result of this. How we lost the most precious thing, the relationship with our mother.

Ira Ferris: And I think that happened through the loss of the relationship with our own bodies, because if we don't care about our own bodies and if we don't have a capacity to hear our own bodies, then we can't hear the greater body of the Mother Nature within which we live.

Kristýna Bartošová: You're absolutely right. And I didn't think about it like this, actually. Thank you for this idea, because I didn't start with the body, obviously because I have this problem myself, so I didn't think about it. It's a great idea. And it's totally true, I think. If we are not able to take care of our temples, how can we take care of the temple of the Nature and the environment around us?

Ira Ferris: I was reading something in preparation for writing this piece and it was a writing by an anthropologist who speaks that dance was actually a part of our nature, something that we did instinctively. And we danced before we spoke, before we used language as such. So, it makes me think how come we stopped doing that? And what becomes of us when we stop dancing? I think we addressed it a bit now. But what do you think of this idea that some people have about themselves that they can't dance?

Kristýna Bartošová: It's a good question. I don't know, I think that it's because we started to misinterpret what the dance is and we made the dance this purely aesthetic, choreographed thing which can only very well-trained people do. And we forgot that every movement, even not moving, can be dance. And as we started to misinterpret it ... I think of myself that I can't dance at all, and I used to think that I can dance a bit. Now when I see myself, I'm really terrified. And I don't know why. Like, if I dance by myself at home, which I'm not doing any more, I don't really care, but you know, the truth is that even I am kind of embarrassed to do it outside. Because I lost this freedom, I think.

Ira Ferris: So, it's that fear of being judged or looking silly?

Kristýna Bartošová: Yeah. I think so.

Ira Ferris: And you said that even not moving can be dance. What do you mean by that?

Kristýna Bartošová: I think when someone is, for example, standing in a way that you feel that there is some kind of energy which is trapped inside the body so that even without the movement you can feel the energy. I think that is also a dance. I'm not saying that you are dancing when standing on a bus stop, but I think that you can stand in a way that is dance. But I think it's hard. I think it's only the dancers that can do this kind of not moving movement.

Ira Ferris: It's again coming back to that idea of being conscious of being within the body and expressing yourself, even when you stand still, you're still conscious of occupying the body and occupying the space.

Kristýna Bartošová: Yeah, exactly. Yes, it's about consciousness.

Ira Ferris: Talking about stillness, and this is maybe looking at it from the other side. There is this choreographer and dancer from UK, Akram Khan who said something that I like raising as a question to dancers and other people. He said: 'The only time I'm still is when I dance.'

Kristýna Bartošová: Yes.

Ira Ferris: What do you think he meant by that? Because you spoke about standing still and feeling that you're dancing, and he speaks about dancing but feeling stillness.

Kristýna Bartošová: As I'm not a dancer maybe it's hard for me to answer this question, but I would guess that it is very hard for some people not to move, not to do the dance. It can be very stressful. So, I imagine that when he dances, he feels still and calm. And when he tries or he is pressed not to move, not to dance, it is actually the opposite of being still. Maybe he's not moving outside, but inside he can be shaking or, I don't know ...

Ira Ferris: Restless.

Kristýna Bartošová: Yes, restless. Like a bomb which is about to explode.

Ira Ferris: When do you experience yourself being still?

Kristýna Bartošová: Hmmm. That's a good question...

Ira Ferris: What is the equivalent of what dance is for Akram Khan, what is that thing for you; the thing that you are restless if you don't do?

Kristýna Bartošová: I don't know if I'm so much into anything like he is. As I'm doing films, I guess that should be my biggest passion but I must say that for the last two or three years, and maybe it's because I am quite depressed and anxious about the environment and climate change and political changes in the world, somehow I don't feel it is so necessary to do films because I don't see that it makes a difference. I feel powerless somehow because you know documentaries or the kind of films I do, which are the festival films, are seen by only few hundreds or maybe thousands of people. And of course, I believe in the butterfly effect that these people can do some small changes and it can change something but still I feel somehow powerless. Which is maybe also some kind of crisis for myself as a filmmaker. So, for me right now, I don't feel like this is something I have to do all the time. I'm more thinking if I should do something totally different, you know. Like really physically help somewhere or do something which really makes a difference. But it's maybe only just some kind of crisis right now for me.

Ira Ferris: You are not alone in it. Yesterday, I spoke to a theatre maker here in Australia, doing the same podcast, and she is celebrating 20 years of her theatre company this year and lots of her work has been addressing climate change and environmental urgency, and she told me that she feels like she has wasted her life and that she feels very unwell about the future. So, you're not alone in it. But then, in the next few sentences, she also said that she can't live without doing it.

Kristýna Bartošová: I was discussing this with my friends recently. I think the problem of art is that it's so far from the people. I feel that the documentaries which we are doing are mainly watched by other people who have very similar opinions or already know things. People who are seeing art are usually other artists. So, you do the arts for other artists or intellectuals. And I feel that art is disconnected from the world which is, I think, a huge mistake. It shouldn't be like this. And it's why I feel it's very hard to make some real change. Of course, you can show things from a different angle but still I don't feel it can really change anything. Especially right now when people are so influenced by fake news and everything on the Internet. I feel that it's a fight with a windmill.

Ira Ferris: I guess sometimes we do art, and maybe it's the same with dance, for our own well-being. Because another thing I'm feeling writing this piece, is that it is a strange time to write a praise to dance, in the current climate in Australia, because of all the fires and horrible smoke and the fact that we are walking on the streets with masks on our faces and people are fearing this is only the beginning. And the news are very bleak, obviously, and people are feeling down and anxious, for a good reason. And as a result, there is this guilt associated with having fun, having a good time, having a laugh or having a dance. But, in the midst of this, I went for a five-days festival in the nature, a music festival and I danced a lot and I was surrounded with positive energy and lots of talks were about sustainability and people who addressed the issues. And it was important for me to do this, to remind myself that there is still some good stuff to fight for or to put energies in. It gave me energy basically, because if I only stay here, I'm just getting really hopeless and helpless and... So, I feel that we need to allow ourselves this time away from everything and shake it all out, shake it out through dance, I guess.

Kristýna Bartošová: Yes, definitely. I think that dance is the best treatment right now. Actually, I feel the opposite, you know. If we should ever dance, we should dance right now. Because negative thoughts never helped anything. Never, never. Negative thinking or sadness is not helpful. And I don't think that people shouldn't dance and have joy. I think it's the opposite. People should dance right now. They should do the rain dance. We all should do it. Right now.

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Vimeo: Kristýna Bartošová