The International Poetry Festival is a celebration that annually brings together performers of beautiful words from various corners of Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia. The reciters present themselves and compete at the Žerotín family castle in Valašské Meziříčí. The Academy of Arts participated in the festival for the first time and also achieved success.
The top competition show took place on October 21-23, 2021. Over the course of two days, it welcomed a total of 27 performers from the Slovak and Czech sides. The competition is traditionally a two-round competition and the atmosphere is exciting, because the reciters are evaluated numerically and publicly immediately after each performance. A seven-member Czech-Slovak jury decides on the progress of the contestants to the second round and the final results. The evaluation was undertaken by experienced experts, led by the chairman of the jury, a prominent director of Czech Radio, Aleš Vrzák.
Eva Gribová and Zuzana Ogurčáková, acting students at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts of the Academy of Arts, participated in the festival for the first time.
Both of our girls made it to the 2nd round and, after the overall evaluation, took home awards.
Zuzana Ogurčáková won 3rd place in the 2nd category of the competition for her interpretation of the text by Zuzana Beňová – Kam do mesto and the text by Miroslav Válek – Afrika, Opakavanie ohňa (collage of poems). and Eva Gribová won the Jiří Deml Award for her interpretation of the text by Daniil Charms – Osud profesorovej ženy.
The main organizer of the competition is the Cultural Institution of the City of Valašské Meziříčí every year, the guarantor for the Slovak side is the National Education Centre, and for the Czech side is the National Information and Counseling Centre for Culture.
Prepared by Zuzana Budinská on October 25, 2021
