Who remembers the Karakachan ? A nomadic people who were also called the Valaques, shepherds on the highest mountain slopes, they lived with their black sheep herd and guided by the moon, travelled between the Aegean Sea and the mountains of the Balkans. Bulgaria in
the 1960s integrated them, in authoritarian style, into a so-called "normal" social life, dispersing the families and abolishing their secular lifestyle. The theatre-laboratory Sfumato - who gave Avignon audiences a memorable production of The Cherry Orchard at the Festival in 1996 -
remembers the Karakachan. A long period of research, both ethnographic and among surviving members of that people when they were still nomads, has led to the creation of a lyrical play whose metaphors are sometimes confronted with the realism of film shots. A big black fleece is at the centre of the extremely physically energetic action used by the actors to translate the daily struggle of nomadic life, and the overwhelming mythology of a people still associated with nature. They act, dance, sing, fight: alternately man and beast and sometimes both at the same time. Behind this shamanistic parade for a conquered people emerges a portrait of the Mediterranean, who, since the Ancient Greeks, has created and shaped civilisation in this part of the world.
Distribution
stage direction Margarita Mladenova et Ivan Dobtchev
set designer : Ivan Dobchev
decor and costumes : Daniela Liahova
music : Assen Avramov
video-film : Lubomir Mladenov and Boris Missirkov
cast : Diana Dobreva, Miroslava Gogovska, Tchavdar Monov, Vladimir Penev, Daniel Rachev, Jeana Racheva, Radko Savov, Jossif Shamli
Production
coproduction :Théâtre Laboratoire Sfumato (Bulgarie), Hebbel Theater (Allemagne), Festival d'Avignon, THEOREM
avec l'aide du : programme PHARE de l'Union européenne (Délégation de la Commission européenne en Bulgarie), du ministère bulgare de la Culture, du Centre national du Théâtre de Bulgarie, de l'Institut français de Sofia (Bulgarie)
avec le soutien de : l'ONDA pour les surtitres
Le programme De la Baltique aux Balkans est réalisé avec l'aide de : THEOREM, du ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, de la Mission pour la Célébration de l'An 2000 en France, de l'Association française d'Action artistique – ministère des Affaires étrangères et de la Commission européenne.