Conference – Puppets and Memory

Divadlo Drak is organising, as part of the International Meeting of Students of Art Academies Gaudeamus Theatrum, the sixth public conference, this time on the topic Puppets and Memory. 

How do personal memories of artists, the memory of places, or traces of specific historical periods appear in contemporary puppet, object, and visual theatre? What role do archives, found objects, everyday items, or family keepsakes play as carriers of stories and emotions?

The conference focuses on artistic work that uses memory as a creative impulse — from personal autobiographical projects and rediscovering forgotten histories to artistic interpretations of the past expressed through materials and objects. How do objects become witnesses of time? Where do documentary approaches meet imagination and metaphor? And how can puppets or objects express things that are difficult to put into words?

The conference will present inspiring examples from artistic and research practice and will open up a space for discussion about memory as a living and changing source of inspiration for contemporary theatre.

Guests: Husam Abed, Dora Bouzková, Daria Gosteva, Marta Hermannová, Andrea Díaz Reboredo, Robert Smolík

Admission to the conference is free of charge. Due to limited capacity, we recommend registering in advance. Registration will open on 16 February 2026.

The conference will take place in Czech and English, simultaneous interpretation will be provided .

If you are interested, please REGISTER at this link no later than March 6, 2026.

Conference 2026 Programme

Block I

Daria Gosteva: Moscow–Dachnoye

Many artists turn to the theme of an abandoned home — something that no longer exists, a place one cannot return to. For me, this is the production Moscow–Dachnoye. How can one share a memory that is so intimate that the audience can still find space within it for their own story? What is essential, and what can be omitted? How do truthfulness and documentary approaches relate to one another? What about the memory of material and its agency? Is it important to use the same original objects?

I will speak about searching for a visual key; about Nordic puppets and gnawed pieces of wood; about where the mobile phone and speaker are hidden. About found objects — five discarded Christmas trees — and how old doors led me to the entire performance. I will talk about performing puppet theatre when I am not an actress, about telling the same text fifty times and keeping it truthful, about how sadness transforms into joy and release, into encounter. Finally, about why and how to create a performance about Russia during the war in Ukraine.

Daria Gosteva is an independent creator and puppeteer working in directing, scenography, and painting. She is a graduate of KALD at DAMU and co-founder of the international theatre collective KHWOSHCH, which brings together artists from Russia, Germany, and the Czech Republic. Founded in 2021 with the puppet opera DINOPERA, the group explores the boundaries of puppet theatre by combining it with various performative formats: ballet (The Nutcracker: Vegetable Ballet), text-based theatre, and the structure of a religious mass (Shakespearean Puppet Mass). Their research project Heavy Theatre focuses on the performative potential of large objects.

Gosteva’s solo production, Moscow–Dachnoye is dedicated to the house where she lived before leaving Russia for the Czech Republic. Originally created as an intimate home theatre just two months before the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, it gradually developed into a full-scale production. It has toured across the Czech Republic, appearing in professional theatres and festivals as well as in private basements and homes.

Husam Abed: The Object as Metaphor

How can objects, when standing in for human beings in theatrical performance, function on stage as metaphors that generate layered meanings, challenge stereotypes and prejudices, and disrupt media narratives about who is labelled a “refugee”? Husam Abed, artistic director and co-founder of Dafa Theatre, director, puppeteer, musician, and producer, reflects on these questions by sharing his own experience as a puppeteer as well as his artistic and socially engaged practice.

How can work with objects challenge, or conversely reinforce, stereotypes and distorted perceptions? How can object-led stage action subvert media imagery, or unwittingly reproduce it?

Husam Abed is an award-winning theatre director, puppeteer, facilitator, producer, and musician of Palestinian-Jordanian origin based in Prague. He specializes in alternative and puppet theatre and in original multidisciplinary projects. He is currently a PhD candidate at Bath Spa University in the UK, where his research focuses on making refugees visible through puppet and object theatre. He holds an MA in directing from the Department of Alternative and Puppet Theatre at DAMU. He co-founded Dafa Puppet Theatre, through which he leads puppet projects for children, youth, and adults worldwide, using puppetry as an emancipatory tool for self-expression and communication. He is also co-founder of the LIV’in Festival in Prague, the Ya Khayyal Theatre Lab for youth, and the Shubbak Theatre Lab for emerging artists in Amman. He serves as a curator of IDEA (International Dance Encounter Amman) and is a member of the Karama Film Festival for Human Rights in Jordan. His productions are regularly invited to international festivals around the world.

Andrea Díaz Reboredo: Object Theatre and Intimate Spaces

An exploration of the work of visual and performance artist Andrea Díaz Reboredo, a journey through key productions that open up a world of objects and intimate theatre.

Andrea Díaz Reboredo studied Fine Arts and Stage Design at the Complutense University of Madrid and continued her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence and UDLAP University in Puebla, Mexico. In 2015 she completed her Master’s degree in Theatre Creation at Universidad Carlos III in Madrid.

Her work originates in visual art — photography, drawing, sculpture, and installation — which she has gradually developed into a distinctive stage language. She works as a director, scenographer, and creator of her own projects. Her practice investigates the image as a carrier of knowledge and social memory, seeking new relationships between performance, space, objects, and audience.

She has worked across Europe and Latin America and has received numerous international awards, including for the productions Superbaby of Daugavpils (2016) and M.A.R. (2019), as well as the Drac d’Or Award at the Fira de Titelles de Lleida in 2021. She was part of the leadership of Nuevo Teatro Fronterizo in Madrid, where she co-directed projects with José Sanchís Sinisterra and founded the research group INVESTRO. She is a member of the contemporary dance ensemble Eva Durván and the collective Casa·Teatro, collaborates with Ikebanah Artes Escénicas, and runs her own artistic company operating between Girona and Madrid.

Block II

Dora Bouzková: Crossing Borders

Memory, personal recollections, and a relationship to place play a significant role in my work. I am the founder and artistic director of the theatre company Puppets Without Border, whose very name signals an effort to transcend various kinds of boundaries: geographical, artistic, generational, and national. Puppets Without Borders has been a long-standing personal creative force that propels me forward. In my presentation, I will introduce five projects by Puppets Without Border whose central creative impulses are memory, reminiscence, personal stories, and the history of place: Puppet Reminiscence — listening to the stories of elderly people; The Stories of Little Lupitina González — reviving my Mexican roots; Half-Baked Bun — my experience of giving birth to a premature son; Living Chronicle, Nebušice — the place where I live and call home; and Maloniny — a place where a village once stood that used to be home.

Dora Bouzková is an actress, performer, puppeteer, director, and theatre educator. She studied acting at the Music-Drama Department of the Prague Conservatory and at the Department of Alternative and Puppet Theatre (KALD) at DAMU, where she also completed her PhD (dissertation State of Flow). She is the founder and artistic director of the association Puppets Without Borders, which focuses on original puppet theatre, creative workshops, and projects with social and community outreach. As a director she has collaborated with companies such as Damúza, Divadlo Radost, Lampion, and Bajka Theatre in Český Těšín; as an actress, she has appeared in productions by numerous Czech directors and has guest-performed at venues including the National Theatre, Minor Theatre, Archa Theatre, Alfred ve dvoře, and MeetFactory. She is also active as a teacher and a translator from Spanish, with extensive experience in international projects and workshops. Her original puppet productions have received numerous awards (including Skupova Plzeň, Puppet Is Human Too, Amplion, and a nomination for the Thalia Award 2020), and in 2022 she received the Czech ASSITEJ Award for her contribution to theatre for children and young audiences.

Marta Hermannová: Collective Memory

In two puppet theatre projects, I have focused on a specific historical era. First, in my graduation production Zlín, which portrayed the story of the city during the era of entrepreneur Tomáš Baťa. Then, in the production Comrades with Curls, the characters exist in the timeless stagnation of the normalization period. In both projects, the puppets did not represent specific historical figures but rather an anonymous human mass,  an everyman representing an entire community and narrating its story.

How does one work with puppets that have no “memory” or distinctive character? By what means can their absent qualities be replaced? Where does their strength lie precisely because of this absence?

Marta Hermannová completed her BA in directing-dramaturgy at KALD DAMU and subsequently an MA in Alternative and Puppet Theatre at the same department. At DISK Theatre, together with Matyáš Míka, she created two original productions: Blunt End and Danger of Overflow. During her MA studies, she created the puppet production Zlín about the city during the Baťa era and the documentary film I Did It My Way, mapping a graduation ball. After her studies, she spent nearly two seasons as an actress at Lampion Theatre in Kladno.

She currently works as a producer at HAMU, is an editor and podcaster for the online platform Divadelní.net, and in her remaining time pursues theatre projects as a director or dramaturg.

Robert Smolík: Time

How to remember the time when I was still growing in the soil. And how long puppets must lie in the attic before they are finished.

Visual artist and theatre maker Robert Smolík focuses primarily on puppetry and stage design. He studied scenography at the Department of Alternative and Puppet Theatre at DAMU in Prague, where he has been a full-time faculty member since 2004 and headed the scenography studio from 2011 to 2018. Since 2020, he has taught in the MA programme at KALD. His main pedagogical focus is sustainable theatre.

As a scenographer, he collaborates with professional puppet theatres — recently mainly with the Naive Theatre in Liberec. Between 2005 and 2018 his theatrical work centred on collaboration with the group Buchty a loutky and especially on researchvím and development within the Handa Gote collective. Currently, he works with the group Škrobotník, Šlundra and Šibrová. He is also active as a civil activist in his hometown of Jičín and serves as chair of the Balbineum association, which seeks to revitalize the Jesuit College there. He has received numerous awards for scenography at festivals, including Mateřinka and Skupova Plzeň Awards.

The participation of the Spanish lecturer Andrea Díaz Reboredo is supported by funds from the Embassy of Spain in the Czech Republic.