© Photo: Vyara Popova

From 16-22 September Sofia ran the sixth edition of the International Fair for Street and Puppet Theatre featuring participants from the Netherlands, Spain, Poland, Uruguay, to name but a few. The festival combined indoor puppet performances for children and adults and street shows happening on various locations in the city. This year´s edition gave prominence to street performances, thus expanding the scope of puppet theatre, organizers explained. Over the last few days one could see companies of acrobats, tall bike riders, dancers, stilt walkers, lights and fire performers bringing people closer to the magic of their art. After one of the shows we talked with Alexander Mitov, PR of Sofia Puppet Theatre, which is organizer of the event. Here is what he said about the purpose of the festival:
“We aim to bring together troupes from various countries in order to show the genre diversity of puppet theatre, which has marked a rapid development over the last few years and should not be seen as a puppet theatre alone. There is a worldwide tendency for street performances with mimes, clowns, puppets on stilts and dancers. Puppet shows deal with interesting topics and sometimes are adaptations of literature classics. This is the fest´s sixth edition in which we decided to organize a series of street performances that will encourage people to see the puppet show in another light, love it and come to the theatre”, Alexander Mitov, PR of Sofia Puppet Theatre, said for Radio Bulgaria.

One of the outdoor shows that captivated both children and adults was Saurus by the Dutch theatre Close Act. On a warm and sunny morning in one of Sofia´s parks you could see two 5-m long dinosaurs and a black fairy woman the same height roaming the alleys and scaring little children away. In fact, the creatures were not so frightening, as children and parents were running before and after them to take pictures or simply enjoy their looks. However, the monsters´ costumes were true to the original: shiny, reptilish, enormous and long-necked. One of the very young viewers at the event even asked his father why the dinosaurs, or sauruses as Close Act calls them, do not have teeth. After the show artist Tonny Aerts, also artistic director of Close Act from the Netherlands, said a few words about the magic of his acts and the saurus.

Another interesting performance was given by Spanish BARUTI theatre. On a small stage father and son entertained audiences pulling the strings of a few charming meter-long puppets. The puppets were musicians and one of them passionately played a little piano while singing playback and innocently flirting with young girls. The show, which was called Moments of Love, was hilarious, full of life and emotion. Christos Brito, BARUTI´s young puppeteer, talked about his art as a means of expression and love.

The Puppet and Street Theatre Fair somehow transformed the face of the city in a few days. The performances in the city gardens, parks and metro stations seemed to remind people of the funny, carefree and fantastical facets of life, and even the most serious-looking workaholics stopped to enjoy a stilt walker or a puppet show on their way to work. From Radio Bulgaria we asked Nikolay Todorov, one of the people in the audiences, about his interest in the fest:

We wind up this feature on the Fair for Street and Puppet Theatre with the words Alexander Mitov, PR of Sofia Puppet Theatre, used to describe the event with : “interesting, unbridled and one of a kind”. Indeed, this seems to be a true description of what happened in Sofia these days.