THEOREM - THE BLACK FLEECE

The inspiration for this project comes from an ancient nomadic people, the Karakachans (the name was given to them by a sedentary group - kara means black and kachak means refugee or nomad.)
"While European civilisations were taking shape, these mountain shepherds, like migrating birds, travelled around the Balkans like migrating birds, according to the seasons. Their customs were handed down orally from generation to generation, like children's' games, ; they dyed their sheep's fleeces and the fabric for their clothes black. They passed on their shearing skills, their cheese-making and bread-making methods and the way they wove the magnificent black costume for a bride. They had no towns, no villages and no graves for their dead; they made contact with the 'other world' through their magical, naive and sober ways. Sometimes, there were breaks in the long, tiring caravan journeys. The Karakachans might build simple huts for a season that they left without any regrets a few weeks later, to be inhabited by another group of nomads. Mesmerised, they chased after the mirage of a black, woolly wave that flooded the vast spaces between the Aegean Sea and the mountains of the Balkans, guided by the natural power of the moon. The legacy of this tribe consits of esoteric melodies, a determined force and rejection of the way of life appropriated by sedentary folk, who their ancestors scornfully called "The Slaves of the Earth". Then the lands were split up, fenced off, boundaries were drawn, customs posts installed and ideologies expounded. Deprived of their Promised Land, the Karakachans disappeared, - the long trail of caravans was swallowed up by oblivion. While Sfumato is interested in peoples' roots, this performance has not been created for the sake of folklore or anthropology. Nor does it stem from a nostalgia for the past, but for the sake of a future utopia."

Via a spoken language that is both musical and physical, Sfumato expresses a violent and dramatic collision between the fantasies of this ancient tribe and the rationality of modern times.

The Black Fleece (Tchernoto Rouno) Theatre Laboratory Sfumato Conception and direction by Margarita Mladenova et Ivan Dobchev (Bulgaria)
Set design Ivan Dobchev Set and costumes Daniela Liahova Music Assen Avramov Video-film Lubomir Mladenov and Boris Missirkov Starring Diana Dobreva, Miroslava Gogovska, Tchavdar Monov, Vladimir Penev, Daniel Rachev, Jeana Racheva, Radko Savov, Jossif Shamli Premiere: February 11, 2000 in Sofia (Bulgaria) Coproduction Theatre Laboratory Sfumato (Sofia, Bulgaria), Hebbel Theater (Berlin, Germany), Festival d'Avignon (France), THEOREM (association supported by the Culture 2000 programme of the European Union)
The inspiration for this project comes from an ancient nomadic people, the Karakachans (the name was given to them by a sedentary group - kara means black and kachak means refugee or nomad.) "While European civilisations were taking shape, these mountain shepherds, like migrating birds, travelled around the Balkans like migrating birds, according to the seasons. Their customs were handed down orally from generation to generation, like children's' games, ; they dyed their sheep's fleeces and the fabric for their clothes black. They passed on their shearing skills, their cheese-making and bread-making methods and the way they wove the magnificent black costume for a bride. They had no towns, no villages and no graves for their dead; they made contact with the 'other world' through their magical, naive and sober ways. Sometimes, there were breaks in the long, tiring caravan journeys. The Karakachans might build simple huts for a season that they left without any regrets a few weeks later, to be inhabited by another group of nomads. Mesmerised, they chased after the mirage of a black, woolly wave that flooded the vast spaces between the Aegean Sea and the mountains of the Balkans, guided by the natural power of the moon. The legacy of this tribe consits of esoteric melodies, a determined force and rejection of the way of life appropriated by sedentary folk, who their ancestors scornfully called "The Slaves of the Earth". Then the lands were split up, fenced off, boundaries were drawn, customs posts installed and ideologies expounded. Deprived of their Promised Land, the Karakachans disappeared, - the long trail of caravans was swallowed up by oblivion. While Sfumato is interested in peoples' roots, this performance has not been created for the sake of folklore or anthropology. Nor does it stem from a nostalgia for the past, but for the sake of a future utopia." Via a spoken language that is both musical and physical, Sfumato expresses a violent and dramatic collision between the fantasies of this ancient tribe and the rationality of modern times.

The Black Fleece (Tchernoto Rouno)

The Black Fleece
(Tchernoto Rouno)