Keeping cool with the kids: Cultural events for July 19 – 25

If you’re a parent, keeping your kids engaged and amused – and doing something worthwhile – is always a challenge. And the pandemic hasn’t made it any easier. So it’s a encouraging to have a week of entertainment for both adults and children, starting with a hair-raising street theater piece called DUKTO (pictured above) at Jatka78 on Tuesday. Talk about suffering for your art. Appearances aside, these performers are having fun, as are their audiences.

On Saturday, take your pick of a theater piece that brings the kids onstage to join the performance, or an online animation fest. Or do both. The Kotatsu Japanese Animation Festival streams at noon, this year focusing on female animators like Fusako Yusaki, who has done brilliant work in claymation. At Jatka78 in the evening, The Star Wanderer takes kids on an imaginative journey following their dreams.

Meanwhile, both rock and jazz have come back in a big way. Lucerna’s summer series at Výstaviště offers both mellow and foot-stompin’ music this week – the former from singer-songwriter Pokáč, and the latter from Monkey Business, which will keep the crowd pumped up for two nights. As a reminder that not all Czech rock is of the head-banging variety, two very good musicians will be fronting first-rate bands. Bassist Eva Turnová is bringing Eturnity and some special guests to Archa, while Dan Bárta is resuming his tour with Illustratosphere at Pivovar Hostivar.

If it seems like you can walk the streets of Prague these days and hear jazz, that’s no illusion. Jazz Dock is continuing its free Saturday afternoon rooftop concerts with Petra Ernyei, who will be accompanied by a swinging sextet. And you probably won’t even need to be in the club to hear the big-band tribute to Duke Ellington on Monday night. On a quieter but no less satisfying note, the talented Tellemarkk trio returns to Jazz Dock for a set on Sunday.

Nor is the classical crowd taking the summer off. The Czech Philharmonic is continuing its refined chamber music series at the Rudolfinum, while the Český Krumlov Chamber Music Festival is preparing a big Baroque weekend, complete with fireworks. And here’s welcome news: The Summer Festivities of Early Music gets underway on Thursday. Travel restrictions have curtailed the program a bit this year, but thanks to the wealth of outstanding early music specialists in Prague, there will be no lack of magical evenings that transport listeners to another era.

It’s a good week for dance, too. Prague’s best alternative rock band, Please the Trees, is collaborating with the avant-garde dance ensemble 420 People for a performance at Jatka78 on Thursday. If you want to get in on the action, Archa is hosting a Radio 1 night on Thursday. And Roxy has restarted its late-night weekend dance parties. Joining a mob of sweat-soaked revelers in an enclosed space probably isn’t a healthy thing to do at the moment. But what a way to go.