Alliance for New Music-Theatre, Embassy of the Czech Republic, and Dupont Underground invite you to a Velvet Play & Party on November 16, 2019, at 7 pm.

The evening includes a prelude screening of a short documentary My Freedom, followed by the main stage theatrical performance of the Alliance’s Vaněk Unleashed, and concluding with a Velvet Party featuring DJ Alyaz from Prague.

Doors open at 6:15 | prelude screening at 6:30 pm)

Admission to the Party is included in the performance ticket.

As part of the celebrations, view and take photos in front of the huge graffiti artwork pictured above by artist Jan Kaláb.

For more information visit our website at https://www.newmusictheatre.org/the-havel-project

The event is also a part of the Mutual Inspirations Festival 2019.

The event commemorates the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, a movement that restored freedom and democracy to the Czech people. Underground movements continue to transform lives. Head to DC’s hottest hidden venue, right underneath Dupont Circle, for an unforgettable night of theatre, music, and the arts!

VELVET REVOLUTION: Historical Background

On November 17, 1989, a student march in Prague marked the 50th anniversary of International Students’ Day, the day a young student was killed by the Nazis during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939. As the students moved towards the center of the city, the riot police brutally attacked them. In response, hundreds of thousands of citizens found the courage to take to the streets to protest the suppression as well as the ruling communist regime itself. As the mass demonstration grew with each day and spread throughout the country, the stage for the dissident political movement Civic Forum was set. The communist regime fell and democracy was reinstated. The courageous dissident, prisoner of conscience, and talented playwright Václav Havel became the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia and later the first President of the Czech Republic.

PRELUDE: Short Documentary - My Freedom (Moje svoboda)

2019, 30 min., Czech w/English subtitles | Created by REFLEX Magazine & Czech Television . In this short documentary, 30 renowned Czech personalities from all walks of life reveal what freedom means to them in one-minute excerpts.

VELVET PLAY: Vaněk Unleashed

Vanek Unleashed takes as its premise the period that Václav Havel spent time in prison. We have taken liberties with blending the various detentions and also imagining both his struggles and his resistance to being broken by the brutality and banality of the Totalitarian System that controlled Czechoslovakia. Inspired by Havel’s prison correspondence published as Letters to Olga, his first wife, the work shows “our little man Vanek“ visited by both nightmares and visions, sometimes in the forms of friends and family and deals with the central decision Havel had to make when offered free passage out to come to America and see his work produced in New York at the invitation of Joe Papp and the Public Theatre. His decision caused him mightily but cemented his legacy as someone whose loyalty to „living in Truth“ remains unquestioned. The play pays tribute to the rich creative powers of Havel’s imagination.

VELVET PARTY: DJ Alyaz

One of leading names of the club underground scene, Prague-based DJ Alyaz emerged in 2003 and has played a pivotal role ever since. As a skilled and versatile DJ, he operates across a wide range of tempos and club genres of contemporary bass music with his true roots centered on hip hop and turntablism. He has shared the stage with the likes of Bok Bok, Roska, Traxman, Rustie, Sam Binga, Mr. Mitch, and SOPHIE, to name a few. Among his activities, DJ Alyaz is also the founder of underground outpost Sapyens Records (est. 2015), showcasing the acclaimed as well as yet to be discover auteurs of contemporary bass music. Check him out at www.instagram.com/alyaz37 or www.facebook.com/alyaz.dj.