Monday, September 19th; 20.00 h; Zagreb Puppet Theatre; 4+; 50 minutes; in Croatian
The world is huge, the universe is infinite, and man is just a speck of dust within it, but his soul is omnipotent. The good wizard and the evil witch, eternally in conflict, are both good and evil and their divine titanic battle is a source of temptation and problems for humans. In their hands, man is merely a small puppet. However, love, hope and friends make him strong and invincible.
Dorothy is growing up travelling through difficult paths in life; whether Oz exists or not is irrelevant. The path to it is what matters. On that path, she becomes smart, strong, brave and full of love for her friends. In fact, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion are a projection of these qualities of hers, of her very essence. They are a part of her. In them, she sees herself. Dorothy is little, but she has a big dream, one that makes her omnipotent. Dream, darling, do not stop believing!
RIJEKA CITY PUPPET THEATRE
Rijeka City Puppet Theatre was founded in 1960, it operates as a cultural institution of the City of Rijeka, staging puppet performances from national and world literary heritage, as well as contemporary dramatic texts for preschool and school children, as well as adults. It also introduced a repertoire for babies (interactive theatre) and storytelling theatre, and holds educational and artistic puppet workshops. It aims to open puppetry to other media; it launched a competition for young authors and it supports young puppeteers through various forms of cooperation. The theatre, its employees and associates received more than 170 professional awards and audience awards for their art. They held visiting performances all over Europe, in Mexico, Japan, Iran, China, Turkey, etc. Thanks to the theatre’s employees, the city of Rijeka very successfully organised the UNIMA Congress and World Puppetry Festival in 2004.
Since 1996, the theatre has been organising an international festival called the Puppet Theatre Review, a yearly puppetry festival in Rijeka that brings together the best national and foreign puppet shows and boasts a rich artistic and educational programme. It is one of the organisers and programmers of the Tobogan festival launched as part of the European Capital of Culture programme.
The Rijeka City Puppet Theatre is one of the main project hosts of the Children’s House flagship implemented as part of the Rijeka 2020 European Capital of Culture project. It has remained active at the Children’s House to this day as one of the programme partners.
The Rijeka City Puppet Theatre is a member of the world associations ASSITEJ and UNIMA, the European Network for the Diffusion of Performing Arts for Early Childhood – Small Size and the regional network Od malih nogu.
