Transcarpathian puppeteers brought another award from the international festival (PHOTOS)

Recently, the cast of the Transcarpathian Academic Regional Puppet Theater returned from a trip to the Belarusian capital, where thet took part in the IV International Christmas Festival of Puppet Theaters "Niabyosy".

19 theater companies from Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania, Estonia, Russia, Great Britain and Germany presented their productions. The international festival program this year has been expanded, and many new collectives took part in it, including the "Lumumba" Royal Palace Theater from Munich, the "Big Nose" puppet theater from the Old Stratford, England. Ukraine was represented at the festival for the first time by three theaters – Kyiv Puppet Theater "Parachute", Lviv Miniature Theater "People and Puppets" and the Transcarpathian Academic Regional Puppet Theater. 

The "Bavka" theater presented at the festival their trademark performance "Sad Sack from the Den" by Dmytro Keshelya with the production by Honored Artist of Ukraine Oleksandr Kuzyk and stage design by Yaroslav Danyliv, which shows the beauty and spirituality of Transcarpathian region.   

The performances were judged by the professional jury – actors, theater critics, scholars and art critics, who identified the winners in four nominations: "Best Performance" (Grand Prix), "Best Acting", "Best Debut" and "Best revelation of spiritual and moral content of the performance".

It is pleasant that Ukrainian companies won two of the main awards of the "Niabyosy" festival.

Lviv theater "People and Puppets" won the Grand Prix for a Nativity play "Tabernacle of Gold" by Roman Kozak.The production has no spoken words, it is "framed" by ancient songs, which were collected by the actress of the theater Lyudmila Zborovska all over Ukraine.

And the main professional nomination "Best acting" went to Transcarpathians – Honored Artist of Ukraine Natalia Orieshnikova and Mykola Karpenko.

In turn, at the final ceremony, the Transcarpathian delegation presented to the Belarusian festival "Niabyosy" a bear with wings – the symbol of the International Festival of puppet theaters "Interlyalka", which has been held in Transcarpathia since 1990 and is the oldest in Ukraine, as well as the album "The Theater of Playing Puppet of the Silver Land" (an essay on the past and present of the Transcarpathian Academic Regional Puppet Theater).