Luhovaný Vincent starts on Thursday. See what the programme will offer

Allowed as a state of mind is a topic that won't let your brain threads sleep. Does vacation have to mean escaping into the distance, or is it enough to visit the corners of your mind and not have to leave the threshold of your own house? This is not only what will be this year's Luhovaný Vincent, which will take place from 22nd to 25th June in Luhačovice.

Summer cinema, swimming pool, extravagant hairstyles, all this is inherent to the holiday

The four days full of cultural delights will begin with the traditional screening on the terrace of the Luhačovice town swimming pool with the film Aftersun. However, the screening of the film will not be the only opportunity to soak up the atmosphere of the swimming pool, visitors can enjoy a morning ambient performance by a pair of musicians Adele Mede and Martyna Basta. The music will be performed live outside, as well as reproduced for the floating audience.

Friday will belong to the ongoing installations, which will include a presentation of the video game The Tracks Are Tightly Nailed to See, created by poet Luboš Svoboda. It takes viewers on a poetic journey into the interface of virtual reality.""After an hour of wearing glasses, you go out on the street and try to look at everything around you as if everything is equally important, the sky and the ground," Svoboda let himself be heard.

The terrace of the Social House will host an installation of a series of videos by the ten finalists of the PAF Olomouc festival competition, Other Visions, which maps Czech production of contemporary moving image art.

Relaxing massages led by therapists Eva Stříbrná and Jan Švuba will also lead visitors to relaxation, while the Kancnýřka villa will ring with ambient tones on demand. Intermedia Studio II. AVU will prepare a pop-up hairdressing salon, which will atypically spice up the holiday.

"Markers is a collective performative act expressing care for the hairstyles of the festival participants. They will take the visitor out of the reality of established hair styles and they will be able to treat their curls to an extravagant look and relax with their hands behind their heads," said the festival's PR manager Daniela Michnová.

Resting among the mosses, by the water, or in virtual worlds?

Millions of people move in parallel video game worlds every day. What do their cities look like, what are their rituals and customs in a world that has almost no limits? Urbanist Osamu Okamura, YouTuber Atlet, photographer and gamer Adéla Vosičková will explore the potentials of the gaming city and the hidden connections between reality and the virtual world under the baton of Jan Mocek in Virtual Ritual. The topic of relaxation will be introduced through a moderated discussion, 3D animations and their own insights in the Elektra cinema.

"We are still staying in Elektra. During the screening with a lecture Luhačovice in the film across history, the audience will be able to watch the preserved footage from the environment of Luhačovice on period images. How the spa and spa life changed, procedures, what was the visit of President Benes or the fashion show of fur coats. The screening will be accompanied by the words of Blanka Petráková, the director of the Museum of Luhačovice Zálesí," continued Michnová.

Osamu Okamura will materialize the themes with a walk with the title Luhačovice for everyone, or how can we transform our town for the better? He will reflect on the themes of how to "read" the city, name the problems and translate them into common solutions suitable for the development of a thriving cultural platform for the 21st century.

Exploring the mental state of the holiday will take visitors across the festival days through all the exhibitions and installations that reach into the interior and exterior spaces of Luhačovice. "The tours will be enriched with personal commentaries, enriching the minds of the users with the possibilities of grasping the theme of holiday as a state of mind where we can afford what we cannot in everyday life," explained Daniela Michnová.

The exploration will be preceded by a moderated discussion, Vacation as a State of Mind, which aims to guide visitors to consider what can be done in a single week off a year. Whether we can take a holiday in the comfort of our own home and whether a short stay away from the reality of everyday life has any real change effect at all. "With moderator Hana Řičicová, we will also look at the regrets that plague our decision-making when making holiday plans, what it is like to travel in times of climate crisis or war on our doorsteps," adds festival director Magdaléna Hruška.

Nature lovers will also be in for a treat. The Feel The Universe Company's performance, Climb Into the Woods, will introduce adventurers of all ages to what it's like to walk through mossy paths, touch animal souls and blend into their environment. The performance is grasped in a playful circus-acrobatic form.

The Luchachowice Dam performed by Ester Grohová: GARDENS OF DESIRES will present an unconventional way of recreation. The performance includes a ritual collection of midsummer herbs, a sound and movement performance at dawn, between night and day, which will open the gates of summer."At sunrise and accompanied by sounds and music, a collective ritual will take place, followed by a celebration of Midsummer Night in the spirit of the Ritual Breakfast with a DJ set by Prague multimedia artist Ida Elastic," Michnová added.

On the tennis courts at the spa, visitors will then, exceptionally, not be tensely watching the match, but after dark will be able to peek from the stands into the work of Kolektiv, an international open association of algorithmic visual and electronic music artists respecting the tradition of live coding, which through audiovisual elements and writing live codes can take many viewers out of reality.

Music program not only at Club Domino

A vacation also includes visiting places that are often not commonly accessible. In the case of the spa area, for example, it is Villa Kancnýřka or Club Domino, where the three-member band Sinks, the Slovak duo Waterbased - singer Julls Mihalyiová, artist and guitarist Ľubo Krajňák - will perform, who combine the tenderness and intimacy of humanity with inner outbursts of emotion, the trio Manon Meurt, brimming with transcendent vocals with sweeping drums and guitars, the energetic young Ondřej Obst aka DJ Elýščítát, and the theatrical performance of the group DĚDA: Bird Festival.

"The visitors will not miss the concert premiere of the experimental music project Eastworks in a unique arrangement for live instruments. It will be performed by slowmotiondancer Dominik Gajarský, Vellocet Roll frontman František Převorovský and Zuzana Sagitariová (once ex+-0)," said Daniela Michnová.

For small, big, local and out-of-towners

There is also an accompanying program for small and big cultural enthusiasts. The workshop of Dorota and Adam Krátký: Journey around the world in 80 grains of sand is a creative encounter, during which sand mandalas and ornaments from different parts of the world are created collectively.

"You will not see these beauties anywhere else at the end of June than at the biggest sandpit in Luhačovice. The art and relaxation workshop in the public space is focused on making sand patterns, calming the mind and switching to the state of "vacation"," Michnová added.

The complete festival program can be found on the website luhovanyvincent.cz.

Categories: Tourism, Culture, What to do in Luhačovice, Why to Luhačovice, Luhačovice, Festival, Vincent the Lion Festival