Feet Forward Festival
Feet Forward Festival is a new festival of contemporary dance and movement theater focused exclusively on young audiences aged 1 to 15 years and families.
The zero edition partially took place from October 6 to 11, 2025, at the Cultural Station Galaxie in Prague's Jižní Město, in collaboration with Dance Connected. The premiere of the RESpekT project (Eli. and col.) will take place at the Galaxie on November 4, 2025. The festival's website is currently being developed.
Festival program
Previous program
Venue
The festival will take place at the Cultural Station Galaxie, address: Arkalycká 833, 149 00 Prague 4 - Háje
Transportation
By Metro: the final station of metro line C HÁJE (exit at Arkalycká street, BUS towards Petrovice)
By Bus: Stop HÁJE, buses 125, 126, 136, 154, 170, 175, 183, 213, 227, 240
By Car: covered parking at Galaxie Arkalycká, Arkalycká 877/4, 149 00 Prague 11 - Háje. 60 CZK/hour.
Contacts
If you have any questions, please write to us at: festival@feetforward.cz
If you are interested in a school performance, please write to us at: skoly@feetforward.cz
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About the Festival
The festival is created by well-known artists and groups (like Eli and others, Ostružina, tYhle, ZDRUHESTRANY) because there is a lack of similar events in the Czech cultural scene. It will offer a selection of original performances (like Neényi, Mikrosvěty, Karneval zvířat, Svět z papíru, Obývací pokoj, A to je zakázáno?, Momo, RESpekT), workshops, and creative activities for teenagers. The goal is to support the creation of high-quality performance art for children, create a space for sharing and working together among artists, kids, and teachers, and build a long-term cultural foundation for young audiences. The festival focuses on inclusion, making sure that children from disadvantaged social, cultural, or language backgrounds can also join in. It plans to work closely with schools and organizations that help these groups. The festival aims to become an annual event with international reach and a strong connection to the local culture.
Festival Values and Philosophy
The Feet Forward Festival is a long-term platform for contemporary dance and movement theater aimed specifically at children and young audiences. Feet Forward wants to be an inspiring space where modern art meets children's curiosity, playfulness, and sensitivity. It aims to create a place for cultural growth, empathy, and imagination for future generations. The festival is not just about showing finished performances but also about creating opportunities for inspiration, collaboration, and sharing experiences across generations—between artists, teachers, and young viewers, as well as professional organizations.
Support and partners
The Feet Forward Festival is held with the financial support of the State Fund for Culture, the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, and the City of Prague. The festival partner is DanceConnected. We thank Bageterie Boulevard for providing refreshments.
Performances at the festival in 2025
Animal Carnival
OSTRUŽINA / Barbora Látalová a col.
An interactive dance journey inspired by the world of animals and Camille Saint-Saëns’ musical suite
photo: Michael Romanovský
Dive into a magical world of animals where movement, light, and sound come alive to create a fantastical carnival you can actively join.
The performance combines movement and dance with video projections, original music, sounds, and especially the play of light and shadow, silence and stillness. The creators draw inspiration from the diverse animal kingdom—going underground, soaring into the sky, diving deep, and hiding in the grass. Children present on stage throughout the show join the performers to create new and curious animal creatures. Come and explore with us a world of vivid animal imagination!
The performance is accessible to deaf audiences and is followed by an art reflection session. Carnival of the Animals received the Audience Award and Lighting Design Award at the Czech Dance Platform 2014. Since its premiere in 2013, it has toured successfully all over the Czech Republic and abroad.
Recommanded ages: 5–11 let
Duration: 50 mins + 10 mins art reflection
And That Is Forbidden?
Jazmína Piktorová, Markéta Stránská, Tomáš Janypka
A physical theatre performance about rules and commands — their meaning, and their absurdity.
photo: Adam Mráček
Explore the fascinating world of rules and prohibitions, where every step along the edge opens up space for freedom and surprise.
Imagine the moment just before crossing into the forbidden—or just beyond what is fully allowed. This boundary shifts with age, environment, upbringing, and the times we live in. The performance explores a range of actions from the mildly inappropriate to the strictly forbidden, playfully blurring the lines between them. The game of prohibition and freedom becomes a space for inspiration and learning mutual respect.
The creative team draws on experience in inclusive dance, performance, and live music to bring young audiences closer to the concept of personal freedom—through movement, humor, and sound.
Recommended age: 7–11 years
Duration: 50 mins
Momo
Eli a col. / Mirka Eliášová
An interactive, playful dance performance exploring the perception of time, inspired by Michael Ende’s book.
photo: Vojtěch Brtnický
Experience how time can stop, slow down, or disappear — a story brought to life through movement, music, and technology that everyone can play with.
People measure time by calendars and clocks, but everyone knows that sometimes an hour can feel like an eternity, and other times it flies by in a moment — depending on what we experience within it.
A group of dancers joins children in an attempt to make time present, to catch it, slow it down, stop it, or even turn it back. This interactive performance combines movement, live music, and video and audio technologies that capture motion in real time.
< Momo is designed for all ages, with special focus on older children. The performance is followed by a workshop where the audience can try out interactive video technologies themselves.
Recommended age: 8–13 years
Duration: 45 mins + 15 mins workshop
Paper World
Eli a col. / Mirka Eliášová
An interactive, playful performance full of joy and discovery with thousands of sheets of paper
photo: Michal Hančovský
Discover the infinite possibilities of ordinary paper — its sounds, shapes, movement, and space for imagination and creativity.
Four dancers, one musician, children, and a thousand sheets of paper together experience an adventure full of exploring space and movement.
Paper may seem unassuming, yet it offers endless room for creating, playing, and even destruction. It provokes the senses, develops imagination, and invites playful movement.
The performance celebrates the joy of creating and children’s curiosity.
Recommended ages: 5–11 years
Duration: 50 mins + 10 mins of artistic reflection
Microworlds
Jazmína Piktorová & Sabina Palán Bočková
A participatory movement-and-object journey into the world of tiny details and micro-movements
photo: Adam Mráček
Discover micro-worlds where even the smallest movement opens up endless possibilities for creation and connection.
Our Earth is full of worlds within worlds, each living its unique life. Through micro-movements, body landscapes, and play with small objects, this performance focuses our attention on the tiny details often unnoticed at first glance. This playful and poetic piece explores the fragility of our existence, enchanting both young and adult audiences alike. It directs children’s focus to the small things and details around them, sharpening their perception, training mindfulness and concentration, and teaching them to play with minimal means. Mikrosvěty received the Czech Dance Platform Award 2023 and the Audience Award, was nominated for the Thalia Awards, and is part of the prestigious European Aerowaves Twenty24 selection.
Recommended ages: 4–8 years
Duration: 45 mins
Neényi
OSTRUŽINA / Látalová, Línová, Jabůrková, Romanovská, Smreková
A sensory performance for toddlers, parents, grandparents — and non-parents too
photo: Vojtěch Brtnický
What captures your attention here and now, and what draws in other children or adult audience members?
Experience a space where everyone—children and adults alike—create and observe together. A place where kindness and compassion are born across generations.
What captures your attention here and now? Neényi is not just about a shared act of creation. Above all, it is about shared presence—about kindness, compassion, social justice, cooperation, and rest. It seeks to reconnect the world of families with the world of those without children, the world of the youngest with that of adults, and ideally, the world of women with that of men. True understanding and perception require our full, embodied presence.
Recommended aged: 1–3 years
Duration: 45 mins + 15 mins of free play
Living Room
tYhle / Lukáš Karásek
A fantastical expedition into the world of furniture, where every object lives its own story
photo: David Konečný
Step into a world where furniture transforms into living beings and your imagination takes on a whole new dimension.
In the space between light and shadow, between the creaking of wooden legs and the squeaking of doors, everyday objects from an ordinary living room come to life. Each piece of furniture tells its own story and dances alongside the human body, which becomes a canvas for their fantastical shapes. Lukáš Karásek balances on the borders between dance, mask theatre, and circus, opening a door to a world full of imagination and humor. A special version of the performance for young audiences, created in collaboration with Jazmína Piktorová, brings the furniture even closer—inviting children into a one-of-a-kind playroom. Come and discover the magic of drawers and play a game of marbles with the furniture—open the doors to your imagination and let the stories from hidden rooms spill out.
Recommended Ages: 6–9 years
Duration: 25 mins performance + 25 mins playroom
RESpekT / PREMIERE
Eli a kol. / Mirka Eliášová, Jan Bárta, Jiří Jakl
A performance exploring the theme of authority through the lens of Generation Z
How do young people perceive authority and find their own path in a dynamic world full of rules?
This performance is based on research with adolescents aged 12–17 and opens a dialogue about how the role of authority changes, how young people take on responsibility, and participate in decision-making. It also serves as a platform for discussion and understanding between generations in the age of technology. The project includes workshops for middle school students that bring these insights into the school environment.
Recommended ages: 12+
Duration: 40 mins + discussion
Workshopy pro školy
Tanec a fyzika – choreografická laboratoř, Barbora Látalová, Zden Brungot Svíteková
Nasaďte si fyzikální brýle a pojďte s námi do choreografické laboratoře, kde se potkává věda a umění, které k sobě mají blíž, než si myslíte. Laboratoří vás doprovodí mnoho variant hudebního popcornu.
Věková kategorie: 1. a 2. stupeň
Obsah:
- propojení fyzikálních pojmů s tancem (čas, gravitace, prostor, dynamika)
- reflexe, experiment, tvorba choreografie
Prostor: tělocvična / vyklizená třída
Potřebné vybavení: projektor + plátno / interaktivní tabule
Momo, Mirka Eliášová + hudebník
Dokážete zpomalit, zrychlit nebo zastavit čas? Vrátit ho zpět či ovládnout? Můžete zatančit okamžik nebo želvu Kasiopeju? A je vůbec možné vyjádřit čas pohybem? Proměňte se v hrdiny knížky Děvčátko Momo a ukradený čas a prozkoumejte čas na pohybovém workshopu inspirovaném interaktivním tanečním představením Momo.
Věková kategorie: 1. a 2. stupeň
Obsah:
- témata času, vnímání dočasnosti a ztišení
- vychází z příběhu Děvčátko Momo a ukradený čas
- hra s lepenkami za doprovodu živé hudby
Prostor: tělocvična / větší vyklizená třída
Kuličkobraní, Lukáš Karásek
Představte si, že u vás ve třídě někdo rozsype 1326 skleněných kuliček. Máte tu představu? Co si s nimi zahrajeme? Postavíme pro ně dráhu? No jasně!
Věková kategorie: 1. stupeň
Obsah:
- stavba dráhy pro kuličky z lavic a židlí
- kreativní hra v prostoru třídy se skleněnými kuličkami
- inspirace inscenací Obývací pokoj
Prostor: učebna, pro hru se používá vybavení třídy
Mikrosvěty, Jazmína Piktorová, Václav Kalivoda
Unesu kamínek na nose? Schovám šišku v podkolenní jamce? Naše tělo nabízí spoustu mikropohybů, mikroprostorů a dokonce dokáže vytvořit vlastní mikrosvěty. Pojďme je společně objevit!
Věková kategorie: MŠ (předškoláci) a 1.– 2. třídy
Obsah:
- vnímání detailu, jemná motorika, pozornost, podpoření vztahu k přírodě, práce s malými přírodními objekty, živá hudba, tanec a hra na téma malý svět
- inspirace inscenací Mikrosvěty
Prostor: venku (září) / tělocvična / vyklizená třída
Side program
Young Dance Network
Presentation and round table discussion, Young Dance Network (YDN) – intended for professionals
Young Dance Network (YDN) is an international network under the umbrella of ASSITEJ International, focused on dance for young audiences. It connects people working in the field of dance and performing arts for children and young people from around the world, promoting the sharing of experiences, collaboration, and the development of this artistic field.
8th October at 12.30 pm
Please reserve your place by completing the registration form.
Eli and coll. | Workshop introducing RESpekT | ages 12+
Movement workshop for young participants ages 12 and up
How do young people perceive authority, and what does it mean to them? How do they deal with it, and how do they find their own way in a dynamic world full of rules? The workshop offers space to explore these questions through movement and dance games. Participants will focus on individual and group functioning, role reversal, accepting responsibility, and participating in decision-making. Where are the boundaries of personality, and where do we let ourselves be carried away by group dynamics? Who or what inspires respect in us?
The workshop is part of the preparations for the new dance-theater production RESpekT.
Please bring comfortable clothing; the workshop takes place without shoes.
Length: 75min
10th October at 5:00 p.m.
Dance hall for families with children | 0–101 years
Celebrating the festival with an intergenerational dance hall
photo: Míla Štáfek
Come celebrate dance in all its freedom and naturalness! The dance hall is open to everyone—regardless of age, experience, or physical abilities. Let's get the foyer of the Galaxie Cultural Station dancing together. Free admission.
11th October | 5:30–6:30 p.m.