Hermit, Plasy monastery, Plasy

The 3rd International Interdisciplinary Symposium Hermit opened last week in a Plasy convent, 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) north of the west Bohemian city of Pilsen. Taking place along with the symposium is the arts festival Transparent Messenger. The festival was designed to enhance cross-national cultural exchanges in the form of lectures, art exhibitions, music productions, performances and video presentations. Starting June 29, the festival brings four days of music and art exhibitions featuring artists from several European countries and the United States.
Perhaps the most innovative musicians of the Czech alternative-music scene – Iva Bittova, Pavel Fajt and Vladimir Kokolia's band E – are scheduled to perform during the festival, together with the U.S.-based Rova Saxophone Quartet, which will continue its Czech mini-tour with a July 15 show at Prague's Archa Theater. The Plasy festival also features concerts by British musicians Hugh Davies and Peter Cussack and the Dutch trio Martien Groeneweld. Installations of works by Ivan Kafka, Bohus and Monika Kubinsky, and Attila Czergo will also be featured.
Direct buses from Prague to Plasy leave twice daily from the Florenc bus terminal. By train, Plasy can be reached via Pilsen; travel to Pilsen by express trains departing from Prague's Hlavni nadrazi, and change in Pilsen to a slow train to Plasy. Accommodation is available in pensions near the convent.

published in Weekly Prague Post, 20. 6. 1994