Konj Puppet Theatre

Konj ("Horse") Puppet Theatre was established in 1993 by Silvan Omerzu, who studied fine arts in Ljubljana and then undertook puppet design and set design for puppet stages in Prague. At the outset he collaborated closely with Jan Zakonjšek in performances which were aimed at adult audiences as they were replete with macabre and obscene humour, oscillating between the noble, the grotesque and the lascivious, soapiness and aestheticism, the traditional and the contemporary. Since 2001 Silvan Omerzu continues with the performances based on carefully selected texts and innovative relations between the puppet and its animator. The performances are usually co-produced with Cankarjev dom Culture and Congress Centre or Mladinsko Theatre.

To date Omerzu has received several international and Slovene awards, including the Prešeren Foundation Award in 2006.

Early performances

The troupe created many collaborative performances with animators Brane Vižintin and Boštjan Sever, writer Andrej Rozman-Roza, musician Erno Sebastian and other guest artists, and also prepared productions based on texts by Louis Edmond Duranty (Make a Coffin for Him, 1993), Lorenzo da Ponte (Don Juan, 1995), Alfred Jarry (King Ubu, 1998) and Federico Garcia Lorca (Don Cristobal Alba, 2000). The troupe's performances were presented and awarded at festivals at home and abroad, in Austria, Belgium, Bosnia, the Czech Republic, and the USA.

Recent perfomances

Silvan Omerzu continued in 2001–2003 with the trilogy Stories of Life and Death with premières at Cankarjev dom Culture and Congress Centre: Farewell, Prince was based on the drama by the Flemish playwright and mystic Michel de Ghelderode, while Sandmann and Councillor Krespel were based on E. T. A. Hoffman's stories. In these productions Omerzu's grotesque puppets were transformed into refined aesthetic creatures contemplating the purpose of life, the magic of death, pure art, divine perfection, and the mystery of creation.

In 2006 at the Mladinsko Theatre he directed the performance Kleist based on the love correspondence between the outsider of German Romanticism, Heinrich von Kleist, and various women. In 2008 Omerzu adapted Ivan Cankar's short story The Ward of Our Lady of Mercy for stage, transcribing the symbolist and decadent atmosphere of Cankar's writing into an irresistible dramatic work.

In the same year he adapted and directed the story from Ovid's Metamorphoses about Echo and Narcissus. He continued with ancient myths in 2009 in Forbidden Loves, coproduced with Ljubljana Puppet Theatre. Forbidden Loves presents the stories of Echo and Narcissus, Daedalus and Icarus, Queen Pasiphae (who conceived with a bull and gave birth to Minotaurus) and Pygmalion (the sculptor who fell in love with one of his sculptures). The performance received many international awards in Hungary, Croatia, and Bulgaria as well as at home in Slovenia.

After two years he again collaborated with Mladinsko Theatre, this time with the staging of a verse drama The Tower [Stolp] about the German romantic poet Friedrich Hölderlin written by Ivo Svetina. With the confrontation and intertwinement of actors and puppets he continued his exploration of the relationship between them. With his characteristic minimalism of puppet animation he put under question the necessity of puppet movement.

Exhibitions

Silvan Omerzu has also engaged in the visual arts: his fine art puppet-sculpture installation Tears was presented at Božidar Jakac Gallery, Kostanjevica na Krki and at Ljubljana Castle, and was subsequently shown in Brussels in January 2008 within the scope of the Europalia project.

Children's perfomances

Although Omerzu's work is mainly intended for adult audiences, there have been some children's performances by Konj Puppet Theatre in recent years. These are Kroki and Friends [Kroki in prijatelji] (2006), Kroki Celebrates [Kroki praznuje] (2007), Kroki in the Theatre [Kroki v gledališču] (2010) and Presents ([Darila] (2010). The performances focus on Kroki, a little crocodile who has many other animal friends.

External links

Konj Puppet Theatre children performances web page
Presentation of Forbidden Loves including a short video
Gallery of Silvan Omerzu's projects on Europeana

Konj Puppet Theatre

Contents

Early performances

Recent perfomances

Exhibitions

Children's perfomances

See also

External links

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