"Casting Hunger Artist” (“CHA”) uses the dramaturgical spine of the American musical “A Chorus Line” in order to communicate Franz Kafka’s short story “A Hunger Artist”. It tells the process of a casting in which the dancers are asked to reveal their motivation to be an artist. Kafka’s “A Hunger Artist” is about an extinct genre of performing arts, fasting. Kafka wrote it as a contemplation on the situation of artists in general. Does a true artist have a choice to be an artist?

Despite the huge differences in origin and in genre, both “A Hunger Artist” and “A Chorus Line” deal with this question - and both are about a form of decrease. Kafka’s protagonist reduces in body mass and in presence, and a mass of dancers reduces to a handful at the end of the selection process.

post theater will present the project in a theater venue that hosts both dance and theater, Zagreb’s ITD. Its “Semi-Circle-Theater” space is a perfect location for the project since it looks like a rehearsal space that could hold auditions. The audience sees a double stage: on the left there are dancers “on stage”, on the right there is a production team watching them. CHA brings together actors and dancers to do an interdisciplinary project that also reflects the genres and their relationship with each other − and collaborates with both scenes, their artists and audiences.

This production is produced as a final phase of Eks-Scena’s TRIATLON project.

The following video was produced as a result of a workshop that took place in October 2006. Casting Hunger Artist is a continuation of this process.