DEN GRI Company

This production introduces a new Bulgarian independent theatrr group under the direction of Elena Panayotova which is being hosted by the Sfumato Theatre of Sofia in the 2005/2006 season.

This compelling performance is a contemporary interpretation of Frederico Garcia Lorca’s 1936 play The House of Bernarda Alba, a classic drama of repression and revolution in a family without men, where women’s lives are determined by strict cultural and social taboos. After the death of her husband, Bernarda Alba, following tradition, goes through eight years of mourning, dooming her five unmarried daughters to a hateful co-existence in the gloomy family house, which inevitably explodes in seething tensions, suppressed desires and ultimately, death.

The performance is created by the finest young Bulgarian actresses in the field of physical and dance theatre today. The working team went through a rigorous professional training in flamenco and then created a unique stage language, using the structure, the movement and the rhythm of the Spanish dance form in unexpected new directions. In their controlled and musical performance the seven young actresses evoke and comment on traditional southern female temperament with a fierce and independent contemporary spirit.

The performance carries a special kind of musical beauty and passionate expression. The poetry of Lorca is here translated into poetry of movement and gesture, and the constant presence of flamenco rhythm leads the viewer’s perception to unexpected ecstatic experience and contemplation.

The Union of Bulgarian Artists’ award for the best supporting actress in 2005.