What lies beneath the marketing created images of the corporations whose products we consume daily? The desire to discover what is “behind” this and to inform the world about it led a young group of activists to collect concealed information, and to uncover the criminal practices of a multinational concern. They came to understand that they could not break free from this corporation’s influence. But after what they had discovered they couldn’t simply go on as before. What to do? And “who is” this corporation against whom they are fighting?
The production Whistleblowers is not merely an “Orwellian fantasy.” It was created on the basis of true events which came to a scandalous judicial conclusion in Switzerland only in 2013. A well-known food corporation placed a spy, a young woman under a false name into a group of young activists. She feigned interest in the group’s cause while handing over personal information about members of the group and their sympathizers in foreign countries to the corporation. This information is linked to still unsolved murders of the corporation’s rebelling workers’ union members in third world countries.
Whistleblowers is a hypnotic and disturbing probe on the borders of physical theater, video and documentary theater. In the performance quotes are heard both from victims in the case and also from corporate lobbyists that the creators met with in Brussels. In this project once again members of Farm in the Cave made a targeted penetration in to a world which had until then been unknown to them. Whistleblowers is not traditional political theater, even so it raises questions about the influence of corporate lobbying on democratic principles of western societies that cannot be avoided.
In May 2019, the premiere of a new version of the performance Wthistleblowers for the multifunctional theater space DOX + took place. At the same time, this production became part of the Dox dramaturgical program, the thematic line of the Data Maze project.
Performed by: Nicolas Garsault, Eva Urbanová, Rin Kin, Hana Varadzinová, Eleftheria Iliopoulou, Olda Smysl, Marcel Bárta
Duration: 55 min
Project LOBBY
This performance is produced as part of the project LOBBY, within which the creators investigated the effects of corporate lobbying in the lives of ordinary people in Europe and a wider context.
With the support of: European Cultural Foundation, Visegrad Fund and City of Prague
The performance Whistleblowers is presented in cooperation with non-governmental organization Tanec Praha.
Premiere
Premiere in the multifunctional hall DOX+, Prague 6th. and 7th of May 2019
Premiere 4th of May 2014, Ponec Theatre, Prague
created by Viliam Dočolomanský, Minh Hieu Nguyen, Anna Gromanová, Hana Varadzinová, Jun Wan Kim, Emil Leeger
Directed by, concept, choreography Viliam Dočolomanský
Assistant director Eduard Prokhazko, Eliška Vavříková
Dramaturgical assistance Petr Michálek
movement assistance Daniel Raček
Music Viliam Dočolomanský, Marcel Bárta
scenography Lucia Škandíková
Costume design Markéta Sedláčková
Light design Felice Ross
Lights František Fabián, Michal Kříž
Video Erik Bartoš
Sound design Eva Hamouzová
Production Jan Valter
in coproduction with Tanec Praha/PONEC – divadlo pro tanec, Praha, Česká Republika; Truc Sphérique, Žilina, Slovensko