JAN BAŽANT

Hza, real name Jan, Bažant (*1979) is one of the four founding members of the Hura collective.

His work is characterized by seeking new perspectives on the position and significance of individuality in contemporary society. His main interest is visual communication. He primarily combines theatrical approaches or street performance methods with fine art.

His active work with graphic expressive means, such as the comic adaptation of Čapek's novel Krakatit (Talpress, 2002), culminates in the transformation of comics onto the theatrical stage using projected scenography in the performance A House of a Thousand Floors (Dir. Natálie Deáková, Divadlo Disk, 2001).

In 2008, he initiated the Echt Street Puppets project, which translates traditional characters of Czech puppet theatre – Death, the Devil, and the Jester – into giant puppets. The international project, involving artists from the Czech Republic, Germany, Korea, and Romania, launched with great acclaim with its first performance at the Carnival of Cultures in Berlin.

However, graphic expression and comics remain in Bažant's field of vision; he created, for example, the comic book Pán Času (Lord of Time).

Since 2010, he has been teaching at the Department of Alternative and Puppet Theatre at DAMU in Prague, and since 2019, he has been the guarantor and head of the Scenography Cabinet at KALD.