The work aims to explore a specific line of personal and individual expression of the performer. It addresses practical questions. It searches for the processes of the performer that retain the essential expression and avoid unnecessary aesthetics.

The use of words is the most common, accepted and controlled way of expressing our feelings, wishes, opinions, etc.  At the same time we often use words to disguise the direct and defenseless message that the body is communicating. The Studio researches how to allow the body to become transparent, thus opening the potential for the body to reveal our other struggles, discoveries and needs.

In planning and pursuing the Studio’s investigations, the problem of ‘contradiction’ became apparent. As actors pursue physical articulation through the use of form, how is the sense of spontaneity not lost? How to develop the performer’s intuitive sense whilst still working intellectually with concrete ideas? How can the physical tools from dance be utilized for the theatre without the aesthetic constraints that define them? How do we explore the highly personal experiences of this work, but still respond to the universal questions shared by the performance practice and pedagogy of our time?

Wrestling practically with these questions, we found ourselves often looking simultaneously at contradictory ideas.  Like the two faces of the Greek god Janus, we focused on opposite ideas in the same moment and within single creative experiments or exercises. We cannot say that Studio Matejka’s actions can move toward both directions. Yet with focus on the ends of the spectrum, we can say that something can be discovered about their relationships in a single action.