An unmarked building at Jungmannova 21 is the home, literally and figuratively, of this year's 4+4+4 Days in Motion festival. There are plenty of surprises awaiting visitors inside, along with a full slate of programs at the festival's more conventional performance venues, Ponec and Alfred ve dvoře.

Several weeks before the festival, "Dům," the name given the Jungmannova 21 building, was already busy with people turning every corner of the five-story structure into a performance or exhibit site or just a spot to relax and enjoy the festival atmosphere. The ground floor, once an Arabian fast-food restaurant, will become the office of the "Art Crash Agency," staffed by local theater performers who will help visitors bring their ideas for art projects to fruition from 3 to 7 p.m. daily. In the courtyard behind the Art Crash office, a café and pub have been constructed,

The second floor has rooms reserved for Side Effects, a group of local alternative performers who will turn a former dental clinic into "Surgery Hours," a clinic in which the problems and cures are artistic in nature. Like almost every project and performance at Dům, this will involve direct interaction with the audience.

The upper floors will be mostly for exhibits, some featuring the work of local art and film students. One floor will be devoted entirely to the work of a group of contemporary Czech conceptual artists called Indications. Other events at Dům include the premier of a sonic project called Odradky and a performance by the all-female Czech theater company Secondhand Woman called Už Muž (Already Man), an exploration of the other gender.

Meanwhile, the performance stages at Ponec and Alfred ve dvoře will host groups from five different countries. Norwegian choreographer Jo Strómgren Komani is bringing The Convent, an emotional story of nuns told in an incomprehensible language expressing only feeling. German choreographer Stephanie Thiersch will showcase her one-woman act, Under the Green Ground, performed by dancer Alexandra Naudet, which examines the divide between a woman's personal and public identities in the media age. The Polish group Teatr Cinema comes with a truly original theatrical form encompassing surrealism and humor, a piece called Mum, I want to Dance Mahler. And Czech artist Jiří Adámek is premiering a work called Tics Tics Politics, a commentary on the hidden mechanics of politics.

Orchestrating such an elaborate project is not an easy task; simply securing Jungmannova 21 took four and a half months to accomplish. In fact, according to the organizers, the festival almost didn't happen this year because they were unable to find an unorthodox performance space like the abandoned brewery or sewage plant of years past. To ask for help finding a location, they finally met with the mayor of Prague 1, who prevailed upon the owners of Jungmannova 21.

Organizer Markéta Černá says she couldn't be happier with the site, which she calls "perfect, because it's in the [city] center." In the past, she notes, "we were almost always in the suburbs of Prague. This year, we wanted to be closer to the public."

This is easily the most unusual and always one of the most interesting events of the spring season, with anything possible this year at Dům, where the organizers have done a great job of assembling interactive performance groups and activities. "We want people to have an experience different from everyday life," says Černá, which seems a safe bet.