Lesung mit Miřenka Čechová „Tote Schwäne tanzen nicht"

In the organizer's words:

You are a body, nothing else. A first-class trained, first-class looking, first-class trained body. Everything revolves around it. The right proportions, the right performance, the right look, the right functions. Nobody is interested in what goes on inside. You've always been told: "You have to sell this, this gesture, this movement." You have to sell yourself.

In her autobiographical novel "Tote Schwäne tanzen nicht" (Anthea 2025, transl. by Julie Miesenböck), theater director and choreographer Miřenka Čechová tells of the two sides of a ballerina's life - the joy of being on stage, but also the unimaginable pressure to perform and the constant fear of failing. She draws on her own experiences and diary entries to create an intimate portrait of a youth caught between hard drills and the wild Prague nightlife of the 1990s.

In cooperation with the Czech Center Munich

Supported by Czechia 2026 as part of the Year of Czech Culture

Miřenka Čechová

Author

After training as a ballet dancer, Miřenka Čechová studied alternative and non-verbal theater in Prague, where she has lived ever since, devoting herself to movement and performance theater. "Dead Swans Don't Dance" is her prose debut.

Frances Jackson

Presenter

Frances Jackson studied German, Bohemian and Eastern European Studies in Oxford, Munich and Brno. She has been working for the Czech Center Munich since 2019.