Lessons of a Conference

For almost two months I have helped organize the international conference “Winning Central Europe: The Spread and Reception of the Korean Wave in the Czech Republic and the Adjacent Countries” together with members of the Czech Korean Association. The event took place on the 28^th and 29^th of November in the Celetná building and needless to say, it was a successful happening. This article is dedicated to the lessons I have learnt and what I recommend to do in order to make the organization of any event as smooth and worriless as possible.

1)    Divide jobs between members of the committee and focus only on your specific responsibilities. I was the Conference coordinator and my main job was to keep e-mail correspondence with all of the professors and students concerning accommodation, transport, program, abstracts etc. as well as keeping registration of listeners. I wanted to help out with refreshments organization too, but it was already too much – and working late into the early morning hours, responding to e-mails and keeping track of various changes, is not good. Which brings me to point number two,-

2)    Limit the time you spend working. Honestly! Give the work 2 hours at most and get stuff done instead of working for hours on end, because you simply keep on procrastinating. The same goes with any task – essays, revision, reading that book for literature class or article for Linguistics seminar...

3)    It is the 21^st century, but still: get people’s phone numbers. It just may happen that you’re in a building with unreliable or slow internet and where is your God then? Ask for people’s phone numbers to avoid conversations like “I haven’t received your last e-mail!” and therefore extra stresses like “Because you haven’t responded we understood the deal isn’t happening” and having therefore to think of something last-minute (true story)... Just get their phone number and get all communication done in a matter of minutes instead of depending on internet connection and waiting forever for replies. PS: Thank you, girls from O.M.G. dance group (pictured), for coming in and performing even though our central medium completely disserted its role one night prior!

4)    Plan ahead. Where to order food; the location of the nearest supermarket in case milk for the coffee runs out; who will wash the cups and dishes and where, the route for the professors when travelling from the accommodation to the conference room...

5)    Sit down and enjoy the show. You have spent so much time and energy on this event, so make sure you get enough sleep and food to actually take the seat of a mere objective listener than a subjective coordinator. Also, this is the perfect chance to meet people both from the guest lecturers and audience and it would be a pity to waste it due to responcibilites that can easily be done before the event! 

Anna Hupcejová

The Czech-Korean Assocation (Česko-korejská společnost, ČKS) is a non-profit organization which organizes events such as Korean film evenings, lectures, Korean days in Ostrava and Prague and most recently an academic conference on the spread of Hallyu in Europe with the goal of bringing the two cultures closer to each other. More information at www.cks-korea.cz, in case of inquiries or interest in becoming a member of ČKS, write info@cks-korea.cz.

Review: The National Theatre Live

On the 13th of June, two Prague cinemas - Světozor and Aero - allowed to experience the live broadcast of a show that was performed on the stage of The National Theatre in London. 

The Audience is the new play of Peter Morgan; it is playfully and wittily written and was brilliantly performed. Helen Mirren starred in the main role and we, young actresses, could only sigh and say to ourselves: Will I ever be able to perform like that? The director Stephen Daldry skillfully worked with tempo-rhythm and although the play may  have seemed too conversational and not much dynamical, the audience was held in permanent attention from the beginning to the very end. During the broadcast, both English and Czech subtitles were provided. 

The project of live broadcasting was launched in June 2009 and the shows can be experienced in more then 500 places around the world. The next one is going to be of Shakespeare’s Othello on the 26th of September, so do not hesitate and go see it! Yes, this is a shameless propaganda, but the project is really worth it.

- Magdaléna Hniličková

Note: More information about The Audience on: www.aerofilms.cz/filmy/142-National-Theatre-Live/synopse/.

Event planner: I am fishead.

Dear readers,

This is to inform you about an upcoming event which is to take place on Saturday April 27th. Feel free to come. For more details, see the link below:

http://www.divus.cc/praha/cs/article/b-i-am-fishead-b-movie-exhibition

I will be looking forward to seeing you there.

David Stringbreaker

ELEKCE.

Contemporary Czech electronic-music scene — how would you define it?

ELEKCE is the answer to this tricky question - a two-day music festival in Prague which has the ambition to gather the best the Czech electronic scene has to offer. At Elekce, one can see the performance of almost 40 music projects, bands and DJs; these accompanied by thematic lectures, workshops, and discussions. Elekce takes place within two sunny days in June, 6/14/2013 and 6/15/2013, in one of Prague's most famous multicultural platforms, Meetfactory.

“You may already see from the title that what we talk about here is a certain selection. In our case, a selection of the best of the Czech electronic scene,” says Šimon Holý, the creator of the festival. “Elekce” - “election” in English - is a nice play with words such as “election”, “selection,” “lection” or “lecture” and, of course, “ELEctronic” music.

The festival takes place on three different stages at Meetfactory, one of them open-air. In the afternoon, you may visit DJ workshops, discussion with the interpreters and professionals, or a theatre play by Prague’s AMU students. In the evening hours and, of course, in the night, you can enjoy the concerts of different bands or DJs, some of them well-known, some others that you may have never heard of, but who you will like in an instant!

“We would like to introduce artists that cannot usually afford to play big concerts and therefore, unfortunately, aren't well-known. Elekce is really a platform for every talented musician of the genre,” says Šimon Holý, who had researched the scene for two years before he started organizing Elekce.

Elekce brings names like DJ Tvyks, Post-hudba, Planeta Nova Djs, Deaths, or Dirty Picnic that have the 2013 Anděl award nomination for “electronic music.” The list does not stop there, so you may look forward to more.

You can find more information about ELEKCE at www.elekcefestival.cz or on the FB page www.facebook.com/elekcefestival.

Phonetics and Phonology (Booze) Trip to Vienna.

Have you ever been to Vienna? You have? Oh, good for you then. So, have you been to the Haus Der Musik? No? Seriously? How can you live with yourself?! How can you sleep at night?! Seriously, what’s wrong with you! Anyway, here’s a chance to make up for it.

Last week our most beloved professor Skartnitzl told us the good news. For many of us, as for myself actually, Phonetics and Phonology has been something we have really enjoyed and have found entertaining though we suck at it (I know I have; my performance regarding transcribing words “anxious” and “anxiety” was rather tragi-comical and even Mr. Skarnitzl himself laughed at me). This is the reward for us; for those, who have tried to penetrate the mysteries of the connected speech features and failed to understand it; for those who had suffered and still made it to the second semester and hopefully will make it to the second year.

The whole trip will start off by visiting the Haus Der Musik where most of us will find out that we are completely deaf from listening to our mp3 players with the maximum possible volume. This finding will, of course, require some liquid consolation. Though we will have some time to cope with that information by admiring the beauties of Vienna, in the evening we will end up back in the Czech Republic in Mikulov, drinking wine in a local wine cellar and drinking the deaf sadness away. The supply is supposed to be limitless, so we will have a once in a life time opportunity to drown our troubles in wine.

However, this is just one scenario. You can also find out that you’re the next Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and that you shouldn’t be studying the English and American Studies at all. Apparently, you can try to conduct a whole orchestra there – good luck with that. However, let’s not kid ourselves; the probability of you becoming the next musical prodigy is as likely as me finally understanding what pseudoresyllabification is. None.

Either way, whether you’ll be drinking your sorrow away or celebrating the fact that you are The musical marvel who has just been discovered, you’ll have the chance to escape the worries about the upcoming exam period, also you’ll have the chance to sing the national anthem when dead drunk; you’ll have an amazing time. So if you’re still undecided about coming, think no more. I promise you won’t regret it.