15+

The only thing still alive in the apartment on the second floor on 29c Kidrič Street are memories. Memories that have no appeal to official history but rather mark another, personal history. Memories of a childhood friend. Memories embittered by guilt. Memories imprinted in the space and the objects in it. The apartment thus becomes a contemplative space, where objects cease to be mere possessions but become artefacts, silent but eloquent testimonies of a life.

If history had revolved in a different direction by only a degree, the Czech engineer Karel Žlábek would have gone down in it as one of the greatest visionaries of his time. Not much is known about him, but he left behind him indelible dreams about a better future.

Renowned Norwegian director Yngvild Aspeli, whose masterpiece Moby Dick mesmerised audiences at Cankarjev dom in November 2021, returns to the Puppet Festival and to Cankarjev dom with a performance based on A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen. The Slovenian première of the performance will feature Maja Kunšič, the leading actress of the Ljubljana Puppet Theatre ensemble, in the role of Nora.

The poet, translator and national hero Karel Destovnik – Kajuh was born in Šoštanj and died at the Žlebnik homestead in Šentvid nad Zavodnjami. He was shot by a militiaman of Slovene nationality, France Černe, during a raid by German soldiers and militiamen. He was the only Slovenian cultural figure to be declared a national hero in July 1953.

A strange rebellion against powerlessness, death and a life of misery.

Darkroom is an object-music cabaret based on Hans Christian Andersen's The Steadfast Tin Soldier, which is considered one of his most famous stories, but also the first one not based on a literary source or a folk tale. It thus marks the beginning of the author's original creative period. It was written almost 200 years ago and has been adapted numerous times, including for ballet performances and films.

In 2021, the year of lockdowns, the high school students selected at the audition studied school as an institution. They were interested in the established school order and its effect on their growing up.

The performance, tailored for young adults and adults, presents a theatrical interpretation of Max Porter's literary masterpiece debut. It invites us into the metaphorical realm of grief and remembrance, exploring the kaleidoscope of Porter’s perspectives and sounds through a fusion of drama, objects and puppets.

“An old woman fell out of the window because she was too curious. She fell and broke into pieces.”

at Tartini House, Piran

Following Hamlet (2006), Romeo & Juliet (2011), The Merchant of Venice (2015) and The Tempest (2016), this production is likewise a rendition of one of William Shakespeare’s most important texts in world drama that we are adding to our repertoire as a puppet production. Macbeth is aimed at audiences aged 15 and over.

The play Make Me a Coffin for Him from 1993 represents an anthology of the nineties, since it features, as Barbara Orel wrote, "primal iconography, infernal content and demonic energy; it is, in a word—diabolical."

Horse, elephant, monkey, cow, pig, squirrel. Words in themselves carry no meaning until they are consumed in verbal games. The tossing of words up, down, left, right in an endless swirl between the public and the private creates a carousel of (in)acceptable, (in)correct, (non)problematic expressions.

In every house, there is a place without a special purpose. It is where we put away what we no longer need, but are not yet ready to admit that to ourselves. It is a space (be it a room, a drawer or just a box) where we leave memories that we don't trust to stay in our minds. They seem too fragile. Eternally elusive, but so important. Who are we without them? And who are we with them?

Moby Dick is a puppet-musical spectacle for young audiences by internationally acclaimed Norwegian director Yngvild Aspeli, inspired by the timeless 1851 classic by American writer Herman Melville. The thrilling story of the hunt for the great white whale is one of the greatest works of world literature. It is the story of a sailor waging war against a creature as large, dangerous and unknown as the sea itself. Who will win? Man or nature?

The performance Open the Owl brings back to stage the miniature characters from the performance Sovji grad (The Owl Castle), created by Slovenian puppeteer Milan Klemenčič back in 1936. (french subtitles)

Session Bulgakov is a reconstruction of the novel, set up on the dynamics of contrasts between burlesque and abstract images of object theatre, which remained on the ruins of the confusion, left behind by Satan and his accomplices. In its fragmentation and through the rhytmization of words, gestures and sounds it combines the associations on today’s obsessed world and the tragic side of everyman with his problems, fears and desires. A trio of actors, animators and musicians puts the spectators into the role of witnesses and eyewitnesses to specific events, leading them through some originally interpreted pictures of the novel at a dynamic pace.

Shame on You is a performance of endless scrolling and content generation, avatars, emojis, trap, stand-up, music videos and stories that seeks a space without shame at the intersection of the virtual, the fairytale and the present.

With its form and content, Tin Grabnar’s performance Still Life addresses the evasive question of the phenomenon of life. What is the inner force that we call life? What is life like? How to understand the phenomenon and way of existence and its opposite—death? And finally, what does it mean to take this life away? By exploring these questions, a sensible performance language takes shape—one that addresses fundamental questions of the existence of animals and at the same time strives to engender respect in the audience for all that we refer to as being alive.

Terror is first and foremost an image of absolute suffering.

The Donkey's Mass is inspiring and energising. It makes us see and dream, sometimes to the point of nightmares.

The story of twins who, in their struggle for physical and emotional survival, strengthen their bodies and minds as they become increasingly indifferent and apathetic, paints a poetic picture of love, war, identity and (collective) trauma.

In this performance the creators explore the field of an intimate puppet-object theatre. They found the materials that allow a double glimpse into the theme of power, the objects that enlarge or reduce, draw nearer or distance, hide or reveal the seen.

This puppet ballet was conceived to the music by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky who composed one of the most controversial musical pieces in the history of musical art in the beginning of the 20th century. Today, it seems almost unbelievable that this highly popular and esteemed composition was considered as scandalous at its world premiere, that the choreography, conceived by Vaclav Nijinsky, was regarded as catastrophic, and that the music itself was misunderstood.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, industry organised the workforce on a forced march in the service of victorious capitalism.

Transport: Cargo shows the urgent problem of increasing road freight transport. The performance subtly raises moral and ethical questions about the value and responsibility of human beings in the context of insatiable hyper-consumerism.

The community of the city and the city of the community.

The biosphere, the thin layer of life we call home, has never been so intensely and drastically threatened. Deforestation rates have soared as we exploit the land to feed more and more people. Global emissions are disrupting the climate system, new pathogens threaten crops and our health, illegal trade has eradicated entire plant populations, and non-native species are overtaking endemic flora. Biodiversity is being lost, locally and globally.

Yellow Moon: The Ballad of Leila and Lee is a love story. A story of two teenagers who find each other just as one of them is facing dire life changes. Lee is 17. He lives with his mother and her boyfriend, cherishing the memory of his father who left when Lee was five years old. His father left behind a hat with a deer patch and a postcard of a mansion in the Scottish Highlands. “My father is the king of Glasgow and this is his mansion,” says Lee. It is in the mansion that he seeks comfort at a time of his greatest hardship. On his way there, he is joined by Lejla—the “quiet Lejla”, a Muslim girl who never speaks. Lejla comes from a well-off family and she wants the world to notice her. She wishes to be seen and heard, and to arouse interest in people. Lejla and Lee find each other, but dark times are down the road. The past is after them and they will have a hard time escaping it.