The audience cohort is, I would say, always the same, there are a lot of dancers, but there are also artists from other disciplines. Improvisation, which is Hamilton's domain, is more for connoisseurs and will be appreciated mainly by those who are involved in it themselves, whether in dance, music, literature or other fields, or then those who have a sense of poetry, are not uncomfortable with a large mental space and don't mind nonsense. The KOAN solo that Hamilton performed in the Žižkostel space bore exactly these characteristics.

As a spectator, you start by looking into the space - it's deep, tall, wide-screen, a beautiful big white airy open space with a few elements like a ladder, a chair almost near the ceiling, another chair down below the stage, a fire extinguisher (there has to be one in the theatre), a rope, a fuzzy blanket and a ridiculously large plastic package. In a creative writing class, you might expect a short story assignment, but here you have to connect and watch the little dancing narrator as he moves in light steps, turns, jumps to go somewhere, leaving and picking up the previous theme, moving smoothly and rhythmically through the space, and when he's tired, he takes a little rest. His chaotic physical and verbal actions are now and then interrupted by repetition, which reinforces the impression of musicality and rhythmicity, and sometimes there is a collapse, a collapse, like when a child is called to dinner in the middle of a play and he becomes aware of reality. But jumping back in is not a problem.

Hamilton is in some sort of fantasy matrix, somewhere behind a looking glass - maybe that's why he sometimes looks for Alice. He builds tiny verbatim situations that evoke memories of childhood autonomous creative solitude, in which everything is possible and everything is right. Hamilton is not a child, he is a man in his dotage, and his acting matches it. He capitalizes on experience, careful observation of human interaction, and lets that wisdom shine through in details and small but nuanced points that are funny in the way they are seeing.

For example, he repeatedly plays out variations of the dialogue of a man and a woman waiting in the rain for a train, who never get on and eventually part ways. There is also wisdom in the lightness of his speech, which can be applied to the whole lightness of existence - it is not just a lunatic babble, it is a philosophical attitude to life. Yes, I took away so much from KOAN, and also that this approach requires extreme concentration and sensitivity, otherwise such a magnetic stage presence cannot be sustained. Many times I thought of Ivan Vyskočil and his dialogical acting, how difficult it is to maintain an inner connection to oneself, to one's subject, while remaining legible and open to suggestions from the outside. Julyen Hamilton is a master at this.

KOAN is a structured improvisation anchored by the aforementioned scenic elements, but it cannot be ruled out that a different performance in a different theatre, studio or church will have different objects on stage and the spatial arrangement will look completely different. What is significant and remarkable is how physically fit Hamilton is despite his long career. His movements have a special quality, a subtle, sublime quality, both in his simple walk and in more dynamic variations, but also in his speech. He comes across as a bit like the Knight de la Mancha or a character from Shakespeare who has seen much and has mentally left this world.

This attractive sophistication is, in my opinion, reinforced by the fact that Hamilton is a polyvalent artist - he is not only a dancer, but also a musician and poet. And I'm not afraid to add that he is also a philosopher in his own way. And I wouldn't be surprised if he responded to this statement by slamming a blown-up paper bag. That's what Zen masters do.

Written from a performance on 28 November 2024, Community Centre Žižkokostel, Prague.