The performance was inspired by the famous Greek tragedy Antigone, the story putting at the heart of its interest the main heroine’s clash with the authority. The sisters respond differently to their brother’s death and the King’s injunction of his burial. The choreographer Nicole Beutler and the director Ulrike Quade fuse puppets of the bunraku visual performance, exposing a pending question:
Do you really have free will?
Ulrike Quade is one of the most recognisable Dutch visual theatre artist, blending in her shows puppet animation, dance and music. She has both conceived and played The Writer that won her the LUTKE 2010 Festival Best Performance Award. Winning awards at internationally acclaimed puppet and dance festivals, she intertwines in her works visual images with dance, mime, performance and music.
photo credit: Anja Beutler
Concerning the materials used, the most important is the place here the performance takes place, which is called „retábulo”. It is built in wood and flowery tissue and replaces the traditional stage. It’s a kind of miniature with a stage courtain, a stage set painted on cardboard and it has got its own lighting (an oil candle).
The puppets are made of wood and cork, from 20 to 40 height, and are dressed in such a way that the characters can immediately be identified just as in a naturalist theatre. Known and appreciated in all Portugal, the Santo Aleixo Puppets had also participated in many international festivals in Spain, Belgium, Holland, England, Greece, Moçambique, Germany, Macau, China, India, Thailand, Brazil, Russia, Mexico and France.
An ascetic room, emptiness of which is filled with the memories, dreams and scattered experiences of the protagonist. Shreds of the past years, flashbacks from the childhood, phantoms, smells and delusions… All sealed in blurred paintings – written, drawn, scribbled by life. A life suspended in time and space. A life frozen between yesterday and today, between the real and a daydream, between the light and the shadow…
This is how the unique world of Bruno Schulz – a Polish writer, graphic artist and painter – is perceived by the makers of “The Cinnamon shops” spectacle.
This spectacle is an attempt to challenge a prose one of a kind – poetic, often abstract, often considered to be unwelcoming for theatre stages. It is an attempt to grasp the ethereal – which demanded a unique means of staging, which is the theatre of shadows. The specific Schulz-like atmosphere is created by the alluring play of light inspired by the artist’s vivid works, suggestive monologues and contemporary music performed live.
Spectacle intended for viewers over 15 years old
photo credit: Bartek Warzecha
A puppet has its own unmistakable language – this is one of the reasons why theatre in Iran is increasingly resorting to an old tradition: puppet theatre.
In a repressive society a puppet can say and do more on a stage than a person, for it is just a thing. This is why theatre-makers in Iran have decided to use the power of “things” to stir up resistance.
The director Zahra Sabri risks a lot when she moves traditional puppeteering over into the realms of contemporary object there and distils pacifist philosophy from Persian poetry. “Count to One” is a quiet play in oriental style. And a daring anti-war statement.
photo credit: Mani Lotfizadeh
“Dead and living figures” - There’s an idea that gives a proof that if we think over human behavior everything we know about it — it will seem to us just a game.
The performance “Dead and living figures” is dedicated to my great-grandfather Oskar Apfelbaum (who was born in Austro-Hungarian Empire) and his unfinished play-memories which are so similar with my life.
Laboratory Figures Oskar Schlemmer - an independent group, founded in Nesvizh in 2011 by Tatiana Divakova and Yuri Divakov). In 2012 they moved relocated to the city of Mogilev. During making these works the main role plays laboratory method; an experiment with form, content and audience.
A traditional Spanish story about womanizer Don Juan dates back to 14th C. Later it was often adapted for theatre. The play used to be an integral part of the core repertoire of every puppetry dynasty. In Slovakia traditional puppeteers performed the play under the name „Don Šajn or Prodigal Son“.
Don Šajn (aka Don Juan) loses all his fortune in the game of dice therefore he decides to marry Doňa Karolínka, a daughter of rich Don Avenéz. Don Šajn asks his father to give him money to organise the wedding. When his father refuses to give him money, enraged Don Šajn kills his father and sister. Doňa Karolínka is in love with Don Filip, a brother of Don Šajn, and she refuses to marry Don Šajn. Don Šajn decides to revenge and in a fight he kills Don Avenéz. When fleeing the justice he also kills a hermit living in a forest. The ghost of Don Avenéz finds him there and invites him for dinner. Don Šajn gets scared and asks to be protected by guards so that nobody can get close to him. He, however, does not escape the punishment and at the end devils and the Death escort him to hell.
Gobo. Digital Glossary, offers an exploration of humanity's powerlessness in the face of the chaos of existence. At the centre of the performance is the elusive notion of Gobo, a concept definable only by its absence.
Ironic references to heroism and the hero suggest that Gobo might be some kind of ordering principle, perhaps based on antique notions of virtue. A self-deluding dream that a Beckett character might cling to.
photo credit: Vladimir Telegin
What is the condition of men in the contemporary world? Why does speech impediment cause problems? What is the difference between a woman and a man? Do dolls make good wife material? How do you hit on a girl? Why shouldn’t people drink alcohol?
If you think you know the answers to all the questions concerning life, Kazio will convince you that you couldn’t be more wrong. In the blink of an eye, he will factualize “the adult issues” without mincing words and comments. What will happen when a six-year-old boy, made of sponge and whose hobby is talking, appears on the stage?
The “Kazio Sponge Show” is a performance somewhere between a cabaret and a musical, which touches upon topics that are striking for the common man from the 21st century. It is a one man, or rather a one-puppet show, where the second, the third or the fourth wall does not exist. It is also a journey of a small boy towards dreams and unfulfillment.
Prepare yourself for a roller-coaster ride for Kazio does not ask questions – he answers them. Maybe one of you will be brave enough to ask the sponge boy a question?
Spectacle intended for viewers over 16 years old
photo credit: Jerzy Chaba
Three views, three puppets in love, one actress, one musician, one performance.
The garden, bed in the garden, in the bed He, She and She.
Pre-wedding desires, wedding nights, after-wedding days.
She loves him, he loves the other one and the other one loves someone completely different.
Puppet theatre performance for the adults using various artistic approaches. The performance is built as a puppet show of one actress and one musician, who present three different points of the views on the play’s events told by three main characters – don Perlimplin, his young wife Belisa and his housemaid Marcolfa. All three all caught together in love affair. They exist in a common time and space, but live different lives, have different desires, motivations and goals, see reality of the story differently. The story does not follow one particular timeline, it is intentionally damaged by deconstruction – testimonies of the main characters are contradicting or complementing each other.
photo credit: Dominik Janovský
Maybe you are interested on what you are going to find inside the boxes. Well, you are going to find works of Shakespeare condensed in... 8 minutes!
The spectator behind the box-theatre is going to receive instructions through the earpieces and is going to move the objects following the instructions without knowing why he/she does what he/she is doing.
The spectators who are in front of the box-theatre watching the show are enjoying a work of Shakespeare through the earpieces. The story becomes real thanks to the movements of the “actor”. Shakespeare as you had never seen it before... with sense of humour, love, scheme, death, revenge, popcorns, public converted on actors and a lot of ovations.
Micro-Shakespeare: a very difficult to explain show, but very fun of performing!
"Niyar – a paper tale" is a Puppet Theatre show made all out of paper. In it, crumpled pieces of "Niyar" – paper in Hebrew – are brought to life. The artist figure, constantly present on stage, embarks on a journey of creation, forming a poetic alternate reality. This world within a world is created by Maayan Iungman - Without using a single word.
A frustrated artist is sitting in a mountain of crumpled paper. With each idea that is being thrown aside, the pile gets bigger. But out of the agony that is, at times, the unknown territory of Creation, life emerges. A small paper figure appears. Other pieces of paper on and around the desk become defined objects – flowers, clouds, trees. They are breathing, moving and playing, while the paper figure makes its first steps and experiences friendship and lost. The artist is no longer in control of the creation. A new journey begins.
Enchanting melodies and sound effects by Tomer Moked guide through the show, on which the whole stage become a big instrument of illusion. Invisible strings move the objects to all directions, creating a constantly shifting scenery.
White is a color of many different shades. Hard working in an imperfect world makes us sad. Simple feelings of love make us happy. In "Niyar", sadness and despair turn a paper soul apart. Birds cross by and carry hope and longing with them. But the powerful altruistic gesture of giving, brings balance in the end.
Maayan Iungman presents the gap between the wish to create, and the moment in which inner spirit takes the lead. The moment control is let loose, judgment is put aside – and creation happens.
photo credit: Elimar Schwarz, Udo Jansen, Elizur Reuveni
In a town getting ready for the upcoming wedding of Pulcinella and Teresina, everyone is invited. The specialties of the wedding feast are the typical products of the lands of southern Italy and the inevitable fresh eggs. Rusaru and Ciccillo two farmers are members and friends for life, the first in Calabria, the second Neapolitan, who invited to the wedding of the Pulcinella act as witnesses.
But something does not go the right way: it’s a bit of time that the land of their fields is smelly, the plants that are grown die and their chickens are sick enough to not make more eggs. Then you will find that someone is spreading toxic waste in the country of the two farmers polluting the land and waterways. They will be the ones, Pulcinella and Zampalesta, to discover and bring to light one of the most disturbing phenomena of our contemporary history.
Traditional Neapolitan and Calabrian Puppet show.
In this performance through the use of traditional code and archetypes of the puppet theater, the two artists deal with the theme of the spill of toxic waste in the lands of southern Italy. Through reports on “ecomafie” and hundreds of inquiries in recent years that have followed, Gallo and Nasuto continue with this production, the study and research on the puppet theater as a tool of high cultural level for the demanding contemporary audiences of all age.
photo credit: Sonia Somma
The performance is based on the tale of the same name by the great Ural narrator Bazhov. The tale is supposed to have told by two pilgrims who descended from the Ural mountains on skis… It is a touching story of old Kokovanya and of how miracles can happen in our life whenever we believe in them.
Solo documentary, puppet and storytelling performance for 8 spectators. Stories and situations from family life of Palestinian man born and raised in refugee camp performed and directed according to his own history.
Husam Abed is a puppeteer, musician and social worker living between Amman and Prague. Master student of Directing for Alternative and Puppet theatre at DAMU – Czech Republic. Founder of Dafa Puppet Theatre - Jordan. He has been performing and leading puppetry and storytelling projects for children and youth in many countries especially refugee camps and underprivileged areas in Jordan. A member founder of Flying Freedom Festival in Poland and France, a member founder of Amman Theatre Lab., and UNIMA – France.
photo credit: Irena Vodáková
Toporland - suite without words for Cardboard and Contrabass, inspired by the work of Roland Topor and Johann Sebastian Bach.
There was an roll of Cardboard. Animated by actors, like a film-band – rolling with the rhythms harmonized with contrabass, showing series of surprising scenes, hemmed of Roland Topor black humor.
Plastically processed by the inspiration of the work of the master of black humor, Roland Topor, a huge roll of Cardboard reveals his surprising inside.
And with the rhythm of his life, with the round about the musical reality of the contrabass is being created live.
