Pula



Awards for The International Contemporary Theatre Festival (PUF) in Pula, Croatia have just been given out.

The names of the ‘PUF Theatre Sky’ awards represent three dynamic sky ‘elements’ or ‘symbols’, as the festival board aims to create a system which would most accurately recognise and evaluate different poetic modes in the theatre. "PUF is a festival of theatre differences and openness within a sincere theatre experience. It attracts different poetics, seeks new theatre directions and rallies artists and spectators around the idea of theatre,” Branko Sušac the Art Director of PUF said.

The Jury of the festival (Branko Dimitrijević, Bojana Ćustić Juraga and Wong Chun Tat), on 5th of July, decided to give The Drop Award to Contemporary Dance Studio from Croatia for the performance “Ghost”, while The Wind Award - which aims to recognise fresh directions in theatre went to Adam Reada and Anat Grigorio for ‘Katuk’ and to Sol Picó, a Spanish dance company, for ‘Siren a la plancha’.

‘Katuk’ portrays the beauty of a human movement in technically perfect and aesthetically attractive performance. The show deals with love, male-female relationships, about the need to belong to someone, about crude civilization. And according to the jury, ‘Katuk’ evokes a constant search for our missing half, with its two interactive images in constant metamorphosis.

With ‘Siren a la plancha,’ Sol Pico tell the story of a giant seducing a siren. "It is an impossible love. She is Water and he is the Earth. The Earth dries out and all interest is gone." The audience is placed in a huge playground, when the giant tin man enters to interact with the giant tin siren. The audience moves all over the place to let the giants pass and get to be interactive with the moving stages, with professional dancers on. Sol Pico’s approach to contemporary dance takes on a mixture of styles, often with an edgy bent. ‘Siren’ is a top-notch production that encourages audience interaction, which is a staple of the group’s work, particularly its focus on humour.
The troupe has gained international recognition thanks to its spectacular performances and the prestigious awards it has garnered at many important theatre and dance festivals.

The prestigious Cloud Award went to Croatian theatre Shadow Casters and director Boris Bakal for ‘Exposition’. The show is part of the Process City Trilogy, based on Franz Kafka's The Trial, following up on the author’s haunting parable At the Door of the Law. The performance is a unique journey through inner feelings, memories and the viewer’s subconscious. “To expose and to be exposed to ‘ex-position’: a place that is an ‘ex’ place, a place of memory, a place where the light is only a memory of the event.”

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SAKUD
PUF Međunarodni kazališni festival
Sergijevaca 32, 52100 Pula
Tel./fax: ++385 (52) 223-915
E-mail: sakud@pu.htnet.hr,
sakud@pu.t-com.hr