Club Beam > History
Club Lúč is the third oldest club space in Slovakia. The story of the club goes back to the spring of 1968 – to the widely shared and also clearly expressed feeling that the young Trenčín generation needed SOMETHING MORE than dozens of taps and that it needed the so-called. club premises. The call for such an open cultural space resulted (after 3 years of reconstruction of the former diet canteen) in 1973 in the establishment of the Lúč Klub in the building of the Hviezda cinema, then called the House of Culture and Education (DKV). During the next more than forty years the Lúč Club, with minor changes, became a solid part of Trenčín’s cultural life and it was there that many successful and well-known personalities of cultural and social life in Slovakia started their artistic activities.
On the basis of available materials, documents and testimonies, the history of the Lúč Club can be divided into the following periods (always including the name of the responsible manager or operator):
1973 – 75 – Stano Šurik
1975 – 77 – Zdeno Vlk
1977 – 80 – Libor Andel
1980 – 82 – Miloš Žáčik
1982/3 – 89 – Juraj Konečný
1989 – 98 – Ľubo Haško
1998 – 2005 – Ľubo Macko (under the name “Saturn”)
since 2005 – about.z. Kolomaž – association for contemporary art (under the name “Klub LÚČ – Open Cultural Space”)
Since 2005, the civic association Kolomaž – Association for Contemporary Art has been operating in Club Lúč and has provided space for the organization of music concerts, theatre performances, discussions, civic activities, art exhibitions, seminars, workshops and other genre-related events, and on average 100 – 150 of them have been held annually. In addition, it was the home stage of the Kolomaž Theatre (currently renamed Dogma Theatre), the Children’s Theatre Club, events within the Alone on Stage festival, as well as the locally patriotic festival of good music and mood – Frog Jam. In 2013 Oz Kolomaž built the First Chamber Theatre Stage in Trenčín with its own funds and with the help of public collection.
In 2020, at the time of the first and second lockdown, due to strict restrictions and the impossibility to organize “live” events, we were among the first to move our activities to the virtual space and the Lúč Club was transformed into the so-called “Lúč Club” for this period. Kyuub Beam. We brought viewers special formats of cultural events that were broadcast online at regular time intervals. At the end of 2020 we had to move out of our premises, due to the complete reconstruction of the Hviezda cinema, so in addition to covid restrictions, we also lost our space. Since January 2021 we have been temporarily operating in the premises of the former Vážka Gallery at 19 Mierovo námesti Street, from where we have continued live streams during the second locdown and the Children’s Theatre Club has been transformed into a “Theatre Vespers” for the youngest spectator.
Our streams offered viewers a different perspective on culture and art, the form of which has changed and is still changing significantly due to current circumstances. Art is getting more and more into the online space, but live art, which needs an audience in the theatre, concert hall, gallery, etc., suffers. Our starting point was the idea of linking the live with digital art, and that’s why we staged the individual broadcasts within the framework of the Kyuubas, the Theatrical Vespers and all the streamed evenings.
The Kolomaž Civic Association is a founding member of a nationwide network of independent cultural centres under the name Anténa.
