About the Old People

Project by Georg Genoux
 
Baba Pepi, documentary performance. Premiere at 26th of May at the NEDRAma Festival in the Redhouse Center for Culture and Debate in Sofia.

Baba Pepi, a Film Installation. Opening on 15th October 2015 at 17.00 at the Goethe Institute in Sofia

 
Uncle Tseni, documentary performance. Premiere on 15th of October at 19.00 at the Goethe Institute in Sofia.
 

Baba Pepi, a Film Installation. Opening on 15th October 2015 at 17.00 at the Goethe Institute
 
The program will start with the film installation "Baba Pepi" which is part of a broader project entitled "About the Old People". "Baba Pepi" is a collaboration between Bulgarian author and actress Irina Andreeva and director Georg Genoux. Its focus is on an 85 year old woman who has lived alone for many years in the Rhodopy Mountains.
 
In the film installation Baba Pepi and Irina Andreeva work together to explore Baba Pepi’s experiences and her biography. Baba Pepi has witnessed many important periods in Bulgarian history: the time of Tsar Boris III, the communist era, and the start of a new age that we call democracy. 
 
"Baba Pepi" premiered as a documentary theatre piece on 26th of May 2015 at the Red House Center for Culture and Debate in Sofia. At this performance, Baba Pepi performed on stage and shared her 85 years experience of life in Bulgaria. The film installation is a synthesis of of footage from visits and conversations that took place in Baba Pepi’s home and her expierience on the stage in Sofia.
 
The installation runs from 16th of October to 31st of October daily from 10.00 too 18.00 at the Goethe Institute.
 
 
 
Uncle Tseni. Premiere on 15th of October at 19.00 at the Goethe Institute
 
"Uncle Tseni" is the second performance created under the umbrella project "About the Old People". It was developed by the young Bulgarian director Margarita Macheva whose debut in Sofia was in 2015. In collaboration with curator Georg Genoux Macheva premeired the documentary performance “Next to You” – a piece about domestic violence that was developed with theatre Replika in Sofia.
 
"Uncle Tseni" reviews the life of a 90 year old ex-officer of the Bulgarien Ministry of Culture.
 
Together onstage with actor Tony Karabashev, Uncle Tseni will share his thoughts about the many years he has spent attempting to organize his life and his duty to work for society. He will disccuss his desire to support other people and also the “degeneration of politeness” he observes in the new generation. This “old man” asks important questions about social responsibility in the time and space of post-communism. 
 
 
About the Old People: 2015 Georg Genoux developed with a group of young bulgarian dramaturges and actors a documentary performance about old people, living in Sofia.
 
„The secret of a beautiful old age is the decent handling with the loneliness. 
 
(Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
 
The performance about the old people won’t be just a typical performance. It will be an interaction with the real world. The actors and dramaturges will take care for the old people in real life. They will concern themselves with the problems of the elderly, which are mostly very different. They will develop a concept on how to help the people they are taking care for in particular and old people in Bulgaria in general.
 
Our actors will stop being actors in typical sense. They will be ambassadors for old people’s biographies, who are witnesses of the times changing for maybe more than 80 years. They saw how Bulgarian society and history in general developed during this century and the last. They have experience to share - private and in the context of the time we are living in now, as they know, how it was built.
 
This project will be also a meeting of the old people with their past, to reflect on their own biography, to remember what they’ve already forgot. 
 
It’s a „Memory Drama“ about the personal life story and the history of Bulgaria.
 
Also a society can be understood by observing how it treats its weakest members.  In contemporary Bulgaria as a part of the European Union, a lot of old people are living in awful poverty, denied a dignified live. The authors of the project don’t agree to live in a society, in which it is allowed to treat people like that. They want to reflect on this reality and strive to change this society.
 
So the actors of this performance won’t „play“ on-stage, they will really „act“ in the society, giving these people a voice and supporting them in their everyday live. 
 
We created a special homepage as an online diary about „The Old People" in Bulgarian, English and German: http://oldpeople.bg
 
Author of the project: Georg Genoux
 
Director: Margarita Macheva 
 
Dramaturge: Dorothea Belcheva, Boris Zafirov
 
Stage Design: Lilly Dzhagarova
 
With the participation of Irina Andreeva,Toni Karabashev, Milko Yovchev, Boryana Peneva, Blagoi Boychev, Ina Georgiva and Lili Sucheva.
 

This is a project by Institute of Rubbish, Goethe Institute, Democracy.doc and Theatre Replika Sofia.

Supported by  the Freiburger Kant Stiftung.