Fast Confession – Václav Kuneš Talks Not Only About StarDance: My Favourite Is Already Out

Everybody now see you as the new judge at StarDance. Few people know, however, who you are, where you’ve danced and what you can do. Tell us about yourself...

I graduated from the Prague Dance Conservatory, but right after school, in 1993, I left for the audition in Holland, which I successfully passed, and I danced there for eleven years in Jiří Kylián’s ensemble Nederlands Dans Theater. I stayed in the Netherlands as a freelance dancer for another six years. Meanwhile, of course, I worked with a number of other choreographers and I took part in other various projects. Of course, those eleven years in NDT is a real door opener, you work with the best choreographers from around the world and get to know a lot of people and these contacts come in handy now. And I’m still in contact with them.

In 2007, me and Nataša Novotná founded our own ensemble 420PEOPLE, which is now eleven years old. In 2010, I moved back to Prague because our ensemble became successful. Instead of three performances a year, there suddenly were more, so I returned here to move it further.

The current style I dance is not ballet, sport or ballroom dancing. It's a dance that reflects a lot of styles from street to hip hop to acrobatics, so it's a diverse style. I don’t have stories and plots in my dancing, rather I focus on the beauty of motion and the physical aspects.

To promote the dancing, I work, for example, with David Prachař. We have a performance called May in the New Stage. We had a performance Mirage with Chantal Poullain. We are planning a new performance with Honza Nebeský, after all, he works with me very often as a director. Now we’re turning to drama-dance performances, but my domain is dancing. Most often we perform in La Fabrika, in NoDu (Prague clubs, Ed.), and in the New Stage of the National Theatre.

** byt/top **

How did you get to be the judge in StarDance?

Once I got a call from an unknown number. I never used to pick up unknown numbers since I didn’t have that many contacts here. Then I got an SMS to call them back, so I called back. It was Honza Potměšil, he wanted to meet, to know me and to go over this opportunity.

Were you glad?

Very much. Although we have some premieres, the media are not interested in us that much. It's getting better year after year, but I'm no Jágr. I enjoy and live upon the contemporary dance. So, of course, it pleased me, because if I didn’t accomplish what I have accomplished, I probably wouldn’t have this opportunity. It's a tap on my shoulder that what I have done so far has not been completely wrong.

How did you fit into that old established StarDance group?

Do you mean among the judges?

Judges and others. Potměšil, Eben, Kostková and in fact most of the people are in it together from the beginning. You are the novice there. How did they take you in?

From the beginning, I’ve been very surprised by the way people look forward to it, by the way they enjoy the hard work. From the make-up artists to the cameramen who control the cranes, everybody who’s there. It is obvious that they are enjoying themselves and that they are interested in doing it well. And I love it. You see that they want to do a good job. And fitting among the judges... I dare say it was great from the first moment. (smile)

So you fit into the team.

There’s always someone who says: “you're new”, and they're right. But everybody helped me a lot, including Marek Eben and Tereza Kostková.

You weren’t probably used to live broadcasting...

Not quite. I thought, "Look, it's like a performance, you just go on the stage in front of people, it's a live broadcast and there’s nothing to be done". I knew I would have to talk, which usually don’t during performances, but still my heart was racing and I was nervous. It was just a stage fright; it can’t be reasoned with.

That's funny. We all focus on the dancers who are very nervous, but no one realizes that you are nervous, too, when saying your opinion.

I think a lot of people noticed I was nervous.

I didn’t...

I’m getting better at it. I’m the judge who wants to help these people so that they would get in the next round, I don’t want them to be eliminated.

So you don’t want to be as harsh as Chlopčík?

(laughs) Chlopčík is not harsh, he’s just strict. There’s a difference.

So you’re the good guy?

Ballroom or sport dancing is not my forte, but that’s why I’m there. Although we get ready for the dances, I know there are two professionals. It is as if Tatiana and Zdeněk (judges Zdeněk Chlopčík and Tatiana Drexler, Ed.) were to rate some things that I do. It would be about how they would feel it or whether they like it or not. And that's how I take it. I'm trying to help those couples, or especially the celebrities.

Is this the reason why you have different opinions on the dancers so often?

That’s definitely it. We don’t look back and don’t make any preparations about how we will be rating. Of course, it happened that the dance couples were all really good, so in the second episode we realized that we had been giving high marks, so we would have to take it more strictly. Often I and Radek (Balaš, Ed.) agree on some point rating, sometimes we don’t. It's really a subjective matter – like any art.

Prodej slunného bytu 3+kk, Praha 2 - 104, Praha 2

Show property

Do you discuss your ratings after the end?

There is no time. It begins and you are in such a frantic state. I do not want to apologize, but it is pretty stressful. Thinking what you're going to say, writing the ratings, passing on the ratings, responding. I for myself can say at least: "Hey, if I gave an eight to that couple, can I or can I not give an eight to this couple?" That's how I try to balance it, and I try to be funny. (laughter)

Which of the eliminated couples was your favourite? Can you tell us?

I don’t have a favourite couple, but I regret that Geňa is out. (Richard Genzer, Ed.). As he himself said, we will miss it. And we do! He could dance, he entertained, he was funny. I admire these older people who can move like this.

Hang on, he’s not that old...

He is not twenty nor thirty.

You’re not that young either.

Well, I’m even older that forty. (laughter)

Does your performance in StarDance help your ensemble?

Hard to say. However, the truth is that our new show has been continuously sold out. It’s called The Watcher; we play it in the La Fabrika theatre in Holešovice. The band Please The Trees together with Vašek Havelka wrote new music and they play live. I think the performance turned out well, I can say that immodestly. I've rejuvenated the ensemble. There are young, enthusiastic and especially talented dancers who are already doing things I didn’t know when I was their age.

And you just direct the show or do you dance there, too?

I don’t perform in it anymore, I direct it. Normally, I would say that I made the choreography, in our world. But it is true that I felt more like a director, because they are also very creative and prepare many choreographies themselves.

What's the show about?

In   short, The Watcher is from meditation. When you start concentrating a lot and see yourself from a distance, you can observe yourself and see yourself from different directions. As an observer, and so on. It's about concentrating only on your own body, and not to be dependent on mobile phones and technology. Today we communicate with people only through technology... I believe we would be able to communicate only with our own minds and our own bodies.

Let's move to a more personal level. I have talked about it with your partner, Kristina Kloubková. She is a dancer, she can dance, but by working for TV Nova, she has no chance to dance on Czech Television in StarDance. Does she talk about it with you at home?

Kristinka is a very loyal person. These are the things you don’t have to talk about. It's useless, it's a waste of time. That's how it is, she has a job she likes. We both work for a different television, but of course, this will end in December, so it will be fine. It’s not pity... Maybe we're going to dance together or I'm going to make something for her. For us…

Are you going to dance together? And where?

We're thinking about it. Kristina began to attend our workshops, which we organize from time to time. She’s attending regularly and she’s always bringing someone else. It is for complete non-professionals, we have such a concept with Vašek Havelka in the framework of this performance, where we focus on realizing our body, how it works. So you do not have to worry there will be some professionals next to you. It's not like that, everybody there is just like you. You can come.

We play two times in a row in La Fabrika, so the next day there's time and space on stage to do this workshop for people, with Havelka, with the guitar. I think the next one is on January 27th, then in February. It's all on our 420people.org website.

And what are you going to do with Kristina?

At first, Kristina pushed me a little to hurry, that we are not getting any younger. Which is true, on the stage together, we would be over eighty years old.
But then, at Tanec Praha, we saw Kylián's East Shadow performance, where the two dancers were over 120 years old together. And it was so beautiful, strong and deep that we realized that we still had some time.

In the fast confession, you said you were expecting good personal changes in 2019. Could you tell us something about that? How is your personal life at the moment?

My personal life is going well. In two days we will be celebrating our annual anniversary, so we're having fun with this now. Because it's not easy to plan a free evening together, maybe we'll have to move it anyway. I’m sure Kristina has it planned for a long time, I had something planned too, but it didn’t work out, so now I'm planning three days ahead. (laughter)

We're thinking about moving our relationship further, naturally. Living together etc. is a completely natural development. A lot of people are surprized that we don’t live together after a year, but it’s not so easy. There are a lot of technical, practical things that need to be solved. But it's slow, we have to put our brains into it more. One has to think it through, it’s not just about us, but also about Jasmina (Kristina’s daughter, Ed.), she started school. Finding a home together is also not easy. We both have our own apartments, so what should we do with this? These things... Maybe we will solve this for the second anniversary. (laughter)

You also have a daughter who lives in Japan...

Yes, I fly there four times a year, or she flies here for the holidays. Or I'm there for a month... She's eleven, and I must say she's a real young lady. That distance is not ideal, but
I'm trying not to worry too much since that’s the way it is. One of my performances, Fairy Queen, we play in NoD, is about this matter. As a basis I used my SMS communication with my daughter about where we are, what we’re doing, how we miss each other and how life goes on. It’s an ideal theme to be interpreted with movement.

She loves animals a lot and she wants to be a vet. She knows that she has to learn a lot because of this, so she manages school well. And she attends English school. Maybe one day she will study veterinary in English in Brno. Actually, I would like that very much, but who knows.

How can you make it work with your occupation?

I am a freelancer and I don’t dance in the new performances, I have great dancers who are very self-sufficient, and these things can happen without my presence. And then I can concentrate on other new things, or go to see my daughter.

But you still have to make some money. But when you're gone for a month...

Of course. When I go to Japan, I usually have work there over the summer that is very interesting. I have a whole orchestra available and a beautiful theatre, a place to rehearse, and fantastic dancers. Most of them are former colleagues of mine from Holland or other people I know. And together we create, so I work in Japan. It’s not much, but it is very well paid.

Vašek, thank you very much for the interview. I wish many more successes.