Thursday, September 21st; 20.30 h; Travno Cultural Centre venue; 9+; 45 minutes; in Croatian
A MARBLE GAME
The puppet play A Marble Game is about being different and about society’s attitude towards an individual who is different, who sticks out, who is outside of the frame of normal or what society dictates as normal. Mark is everything others are not. He is a chubby nerd with round glasses who wears his grandfather’s suspenders. He likes to read comic books, look at the stars and solve long mathematical equations. One of his shoelaces is always accidentally untied. He stands out among the many handsome neighbourhood boys playing with marbles. And that is why they hate him. Because he stands out, because he is different. Through Mark, this play focuses on ways of dealing with a society that oppresses, bullies, rejects and destroys differences. It asks the question of how we can loudly talk about it and eliminate the possibility of aggression. The play is timeless and staged as if it could happen to anyone, anywhere, anytime. The play was created as the final exam in Puppetry in the third year of the undergraduate study of Acting and Puppetry at the Academy of Arts and Culture in Osijek.
ACADEMY OF ARTS AND CULTURE IN OSIJEK, REPUBLIC OF CROATIA
The Academy of Arts and Culture in Osijek is the only artistic-teaching organisational unit of the University of Josip Juraj Strossmayer in Osijek. It started operating independently in the academic year 2004/2005 as the Academy of Arts in Osijek. Today, it has six departments. There are several undergraduate university study programmes, including Acting and Puppetry, and Theatre, Film and Television Design (which includes puppet design and technology). The Academy of Arts and Culture has the only puppetry programme in Croatia (and neighbouring countries). At the Department of Theatre Arts, as part of the Acting and Puppetry study programme, students study both dramatic acting and puppetry and acquire a bachelor’s degree in acting and puppetry. Graduate university programmes include the Puppetry Animation study programme and the entirely new Puppetry Directing study programme. The Academy contributes to Osijek’s cultural and artistic life by organising numerous events such as the Dioniz festival and Lutkokaz (an international puppetry revue – a meeting of puppetry academies and small puppet theatres). Acting and puppetry students successfully toured their puppet performances at festivals in the country and abroad (Slovakia, Russia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Poland and Italy). They are regular guests at PIF where they showcase their undergraduate and graduate exam productions, new approaches to puppetry and innovations in stage performance. The performance Rainbow, created as a graduation exam, won four awards at the 48th PIF.
