Meeting of Hungarian Puppet Theatres
In the autumn of 1991 it became obvious that there was a growing need for an annual forum of the puppet theatre profession where the Hungarian puppet theatres could present themselves and discuss their actual situation. It would give the participants the opportunity to follow each other’s work and make a professional summary.
The first meeting was in 1992, and in 2014 we organized it for the 12nd time.
During the five days of the festival the performances are shown in three different venues and the audience can also enjoy a performance from a foreign puppet theatre. When choosing the guest show, our primary goal is to show a performance that can serve as an inspiration to the future work of Hungarian puppeteers. In the past years we had the chance to watch the performances of Teatrul Papusi from Constanta,Naivní Divadlo from Liberec, Teatr Lalek from Bialystok, Divadlo Alfa from Pilzen, Divadlo DRAK from Hradec Kralove, Until Doomsday from Bielsko Biala, Clive Chandler from Birmingham and Figuren Theater Tübingen from Germany.
It has become a tradition that within the frames of this festival we provide young puppeteer students from the Academy of Drama and Film with the opportunity to introduce themselves in front of a professional audience.
After the performances, participants not only have the possibility to discuss what they have seen but also to talk about other actual problems like financial and structural questions. We usually invite Hungarian and foreign experts representing different international festivals to these debates. We are very happy that representatives of Hungarian puppet theatres from abroad also find it important to be present. In this way the festival gives an opportunity to make contacts, exchange invitations of directors and designers and consult with representatives of the ministries. The meeting is different from other national puppet festivals because the programme is not chosen after a selection but all puppet theatres can decide which of their performances they want to show to the profession. Because of this, the event is not a competition. On the professional debates, besides discussing the shows, there are no evaluations. The importance of the meeting is that it gives the opportunity for the puppet theatres to show themselves, to participate and to discourse and it also gives an overall view of the actual situation of Hungarian puppetry art.
The group of participants till now has been very colourful, traditional puppet performances and experimental shows seeking new expressing forms have both been present.