Perpericon Melpomena festival will open in "the home of Gods"

By: Svetlana Dicheva, Bulgarian National Radio

---

More than 8000 people are expected to attend the Perpericon Melpomena festival which will be held for the fifth time in the Bulgarian town of Kurdjali between June 20 and 23. Its opening as usual will be accompanied with a picturesque show in an extraordinary environment - in the Thracian Perpericon site where important archaeological finds took place in recent years. The Perpericon palace has been named by archeologists "home of Gods" and is the archeological hit of the last years in Bulgaria. The palace and its fortress are considered to be the ancient and mysterious capital of the Odryss kingdom. Ritual danses and an impressive procession will attract the attention of the public in the beginning of the festival. All this is called "Perpericon happening" and is a topic of conversation in Kurdjali for months. The most interesting place of the Perpericon palace is the king throne cut in the rocks. Almost every visitor tries to sit there. One of the laureates of the Perpericon festival, the prominent Bulgarian artist Svetlin Roussev said:"When sitting in the throne one has the feeling of eternity."

Harold Pinter, one of the most famous British playwrights, who is also a director, actor, poet and political activist, wll be conferred the 2005 Perperikon Prize for his contribution to Bulgarian and European culture. Pinter was in Bulgaria in 2003. Bulgarian actor Stefan Danailov was the first laureate of Perperikon. He got it in 2000. The famous Bulgarian-Turkish jazz singer Jyldys Ibrahimova also took the prize.

The selection of theatrical productions this year will be shown under the motto "The Boundaries of Theatre and Theatre without Boundaries." There will be a seminar for professional actors, who will show their production on June 23. The workshop for puppet theatre is financed by the programme "Europe 2003" of the EU in the framework of the project "Miracle". The project took place in the last 8 months and included 46 performances of puppet theatre in remote villages in Haskovo, Kurdjali and Smolian region where a puppet theatre has never been seen. On June 20 will be the only concert given during the festival. The performers are La Campagna Latina Mersinena, a Turkish ethnojazz ensemble. One of its members is violin player Arif Yosman, concertmaster of the Mersin (Turkey) Philharmonic Orchestra, who was born in Kurdjali. The vocalist of the ensemble is Juan Botella Lucas from Spain, a sculptor, who will stage his own performance named "Before Dionisius" during the festival, too. Bulgarian musicians will take part in the show of the ensemble.

On June 23 will be the first night of the film "Orpheus: The Virtual Museum," that tells about the important archaeological finds in Bulgaria in recent years. Zlatina Rousseva who lives in Belgium is producer and director of the film. "Orpheus: The Virtual Museum" is shot accordind to the BBC film standards showing archeological sites visited by ordinary people.

The organizers of the Perpericon festival are happy about the interest toward the annual cultural event combining the desire to see and to learn more about the archeological finds and the contemporary theatre. The festival gives more stimulus and energy to the economy of the town of Kurdjali. Thanks to it many Bulgarian and foreign tourists rediscover the town on the map.

 

 

more Comments...