Terén’s core programme offers original stagings of various production difficulty levels provided by guest authors, theatre groups and art collectives.
Terén is building an aesthetic diversity instead of relying on a singular aesthetic. It investigates the borders in which contemporary theatre moves and which tools it can choose to communicate.
Terén creates a space for the conception of staging projects, overlapping into musical and dramatic forms, performative concerts, performances, happenings, events, public space interventions, and other formats of artistic communication in which people meet to lead a lively dialogue.
Terén works with the urban environment of Brno conceptually, and sees it as a complex creative space. It helds its events at theatre venues and in the specific spaces of the urban landscape.
Terén is the meeting ground for official and underground culture, for state-funded and independent scenes, for professional and beginning artists.
Terén initiates creative meetings of performance artists with artists from different fields.
Terén cooperates with non-artistic initiatives and institutions such as academic and scientific institutes, environmental and ecological movements, non-profit organizations and others.
Terén explores the contemporary forms of performing arts – it is a platform for experiments, research and education, meetings with theatre professionals, lectures, discussions, and workshops.
Terén’s program is looking for a response from different spectators and communities, even outside the field of theatre.
Terén secures the conditions for the creation of daring art projects, which would otherwise have troubles getting through in the market-oriented cultural environment.
Terén is searching for a new vitality of author-audience relationships; its mission is the permanent redefinition of the purpose and position of theatre and performing arts in society.
The mission of Terén is to create a long-term base for the creation of ambitious, unique works of performing arts. We mainly focus on the matters of dramaturgy and production, and we collaborate with local, visiting, and foreign creators. Terén is not shaped to be in opposition to the conventional drama aesthetics, to serve as a space for minor theatre genres, nor to act as an exclusive support to new creators. The collective embraces all formats and approaches. Terén represents a complex endeavour to change the trajectories and vectors controlling the way we think about performing arts in the context of multi genre and anti-genre discourses. We are intrigued by the possibilities of probing into seemingly well-explored areas of art – opera, drama, children’s plays etc.
Terén was established on October 1, 2019 as a brand new platform complementary to the function of Husa na provázku theatre, HaDivadlo theatre, and the general cultural context of Brno. Its approach is based on the fundamental search for contemporary identities of works and institutions of performing arts, providing a supportive environment for their production. The intention behind the activities of Terén is to develop the possible forms of dialogue between the creators and the public. In doing so, the collective examines their own role as an initiator of such communication. Terén focuses on the broader context of positive and negative limitations, and other formative conditions for the creation of works of performing arts, such as – stable members of a drama group, permanent facilities, need for a continuous staging reconstruction, a standardised preparation time, and others. Terén aims to redefine these conditions and develop diverse creative approaches in terms of flexible duration of preparation, co-authorial involvement of various communities in the projects, dehierarchised model of work, and the use of specific urban sites.
We are interested in building a stable performing arts environment which deviates from the conventional understanding of unity, stability, and repetition. We are interested in the very limits of contemporary theatre and performance. We try to see them in a broader context, that is – not just as aestheticised and carefully orchestrated human expressions. For our dramaturgy, we do not need theatre facilities nor theatrological terminology. We focus on the development of a specific medium/art form, and we are searching for ways to maximise, upset, and realign its potential. The fact that our work hovers above definite media categories and genres, and that we want to present it in different modes of speed, duration, artistic format, and imprint on the social and artistic structures of Brno and other cities means one thing only – there is just one kind of performativity which can be presented just as well in theatre halls as in painting, electronic or classical music, or on the corner in front of a butcher’s shop at three o’clock PM. Performativity is not a stronghold of theatre. It is a much broader concept and it influences us in complex ways.
We are producing works which are backed up by confident authorial self-expression. Terén is here to support original works that generate their own purposes for existence and are not perpetuated by inertia. Terén wants to continuously disrupt the aesthetic and ideological monoculture, the safety of opinions, and isolation of social classes and communities.
As an idea, the name Terén indicates the difficulty of movement on a rough, unstable, structured but chaotic surface. It does not offer a smooth and predictable dramaturgy. It provides a dramaturgy full of tectonic faults, meanders, and barriers – dramaturgy on the level of carefully composed series of plays, projects, and events, looking for other perspectives, roles, and experiences of the audience. Risk and hazard are a part of Terén’s profile. We view Terén as space in which new organisms are born.