Tatra banka Jubilee Prizes for Art

The awards of Tatra banka prizes for the art during the years 1996 - 2005 have been appraised by spectators, media, and professionals from cultural or financial circles. The prizes represent the bank´s contribution for support of cultural life in Slovakia. The jury consisting of 9 professionals and personalities of social and artistic life, as for example Jozef Bednárik, Eva Borušovičová, Peter Dvorský, Daniel Hevier, Emil Horváth Jr., Peter Michalica, Ján Hoffstädter, and others awarded this year´s Tatra banka Prize for Art 2005 to four personalities of the Slovak cultural and artistic scene. The prize includes also a financial grant in the amount of SKK 150,000 (EUR 4,979.09)¹, which we believe will help the winners in realising their future artistic projects. The prizes are awarded in three of the following eight categories:

• literature,
• film, television, and radio,
• fine art work,
• musical work,
• performance (acting, singing, dancing, ballet, music, etc.)
• extraordinary creative work of the year;
• life´s work,
• the best debut.

"Reborn Dances" Festival

The national culture festival named „Reborn Dances" brings new choreography, and its aim is to enlive and enrich folklore dances in Slovakia. Primarily, it is oriented at the dancing, musical, and singing scenes of the best works in Slovakia. It includes also dancing houses, special seminars, exhibition of photography, fashion shows inspired by national costumes, traditional market, and individual music programs, etc. In this year, it will be organized for the 4^th time in a row. Tatra banka has decided to be a general partner of the festival also in 2005, trying to show the traditional Slovak art and values to the wide range of folk music connoisseurs, and thus to create a bridge to the future in order to keep the positions of this type of art, which historically belonged to Slovakia. The primary criterion for Tatra banka to be engaged in the project was the quality of artistic performance.

 Pohoda Festival

The Pohoda Festival is a multimedia international festival organized since 1997. Since that time, it has become one of the most prestigious and best music festival within the whole former Czechoslovakia. Together with the accompanying events, as e.g. exhibitions of photography and painting and sculpture works by young artists, street theatre, tea rooms, etc., the festival represents an exceptional show of young non-commercial art. The festival is characteristic by its precise set up, great atmosphere, and good services. Tatra banka has become the main general partner of the festival for the first time in 2004, and it has decided to act as general partner also in 2005. This activity represents its approach to the young and mid generation´s interest in good music of Slovak and world performers.

World of Stars and Illusions

This wonderful name covers more than 200 posters of the world cinematography dated before 1900 till present. It includes not only the Hollywood movies, but also the Slovak, Czech, French, German, etc. cinematography. Two basic criteria are set for selection of posters: the fame of the film and the quality of posters. The exhibition has already been realised in nine cities of the world, where it was quite famous. Now it is held in the Mirbach Palace in the square Františkánske námestie in Bratislava from 12.1.2005 to 20.3.2005. It is a unique exhibition not only in Slovakia, but also in Europe, and as Tatra banka wishes to support, inter alia, good projects in art and culture, represented by this exhibition, we have decided to donate the amount of SKK 600,000 (EUR 19,916.35)¹.

Support of Slovak Theatres

Since its establishment, Tatra banka has regularly supported good projects of the Slovak culture. In 2005, we decided to continue in this tradition by annual or seasonal support of Slovak theatres in all regions of Slovakia. The reason is also the fact that Tatra banka realizes that quality of theatre shows much depends on the amount of money available to the given theatre, which, however, are insufficient. Our support is provided to the following theatres:

Košice State Theatre, J. Záborsky Theatre in Prešov, Slovak Chamber Theatre in Martin, Town Theatre in Žilina, J.G. Tajovsky Theatre in Zvolen, and J. Palárik Theatre in Trnava.
And why these theatres? Particularly because they have been existing in the local scene for several years, they offer very good quality performances to the audience, and are popular in the region.