Ljubljana Puppet Theatre
SLOVENIA
The performance’s main element will be a bathtub. A transparent one. It will remind us of an aquarium. An aquarium as a children's playground for somewhat older children. An aquarium as a space for a theatre performance. An aquarium as a television.
A bathtub is actually one of the first playgrounds for a child. A playground as a space for playing, learning and creating. And a space for the child's first theatre experiences. A bathtub is like a sandpit, except that there's water in it instead of sand. An empty bathtub is like an empty sheet of paper, waiting for us to fill it with water and step into it. A bathtub could be like Pandora's Box, except that it contains no anger or hatred – just water. Water as a source of life, or a source of knowledge about life, or a spell of life, or a philosophy of life. Like the water cycle. A journey from winter to summer.
Thus the bathtub will provide both – sets and puppets. Water will be a theatre polygon, through which a child gets to know their physical characteristics and strengthen their awareness of their body and the world that surrounds them. Water as one of the four elements. Water in conjunction with earth, fire and air will lead to a story about the establishment of an ecosystem. How and why is the water cycle interrupted? How do we re-establish it, start it up?
Ljubljana Puppet Theatre is the principal Slovenian puppet theatre, hosting puppet shows and drama performances for children, young people and adults. The theatre, which operates in six venues and premieres ten performances every year, also boasts two biennial festivals – the International Puppet Theatre Festival LUTKE and the National Festival of Performing Arts for Children and Young People Golden Stick. One of the theatre’s crucial activities is also attending to the preservation of the rich Slovenian puppetry legacy, to be showcased in a new Puppet Museum at the Ljubljana Castle from autumn 2014.