Klaipeda Puppet Theatre is the organizer of the Puppet Theatre Festival MATERIA MAGICA which takes place every two years in May. Born in the young and creative minds of puppet theatre students of the Klaipeda University back in 1997, the festival was known as Karakum Donkey for several decades. 2017 marked a big change for the festival - it has put on a new name, grown bigger and more audience-wise - now it is dedicated to both children and adults. “Materia magica” - a combination of words that apart from having this hint of ages-old secret, conveys the very nature of puppet theatre: the coming into life, the promise of vitality rooted in every object that is waiting to be animated by a puppeteer, and the magic material that could transform itself into whatever it wants.
In 2018, the year of the 100th anniversary of the Restoration of Independence of Lithuania, Klaipeda Puppet Theatre has introduced Lithuanian Puppet Theatre Showcase organized for the first time ever in the history of Lithuanian puppetry. Materia Magica LT will take place in 20-23 September, 2018. Dedicated to festival programmers, producers and cultural managers, as well as everyone interested in Lithuanian puppet theatre, it will mostly aim at promoting Lithuanian puppet theatre abroad, paving paths for future creative collaborations and coproductions with foreign artists and institutions.
Lithuanian Puppet Theatre Showcase Materia Magica LT 2018 will present the majority of Lithuanian professional state, municipal and independent theatres creating in the field of puppet, object, and visual theatre. A four-day extensive programme will draw an in-depth panorama of Lithuanian puppet theatre which was always characteristic of its distinctive approach to visuality, design, and the poetics of image. Apart from presenting performances, the festival will invite its audience and foreign guests to stay after the shows and debate over puppetry as well as its role in the changing context of grand theatre, converse about possible future collaborations, as well as get to know Lithuanian puppet theatres and independent groups better during the artists-producers meeting. Lithuanian puppeteers will have an opportunity to attend masterclasses led by foreign puppet theatre masters. Co-organized together with Unima Lithuania, two 3-day-long workshops will concentrate on object theatre (run by Gérard Schiphorst and Marije van der Sande from TAMTAM objektentheater from the Netherlands) and puppetry and film (run by Zvi Sahar from Puppet Cinema).
MATERIA MAGICA FESTIVAL is an open and diverse platform for native and foreign artists to present their creative work, as well as a vibrant meeting-point to get in touch with colleagues from other countries, theatres, and schools to share their knowledge, experience, and ideas about possible collaborative projects. The festival aims at presenting and promoting puppet theatre in its diversity and originality, crossing age and language borders, combining tradition with new wave, its interdisciplinary nature with the depth of pure forms. Apart from theatre shows the festival presents film screenings, workshops, street events. We say: BE CALM. PUPPET ON. And come to Klaipeda.
