Artistic Discoveries in European Schoolyards

SZINHÀZ KOLIBRI
Budapest | Hungary

Kolibri theatre started its work as an alternative puppet theatre in 1992 with the separation of the State Puppet Theatre.

Our maintainer is the City Council of Budapest. The theatre operates with a permanent company which at the beginning was comprised of puppeteers but by now the puppet and prose section have become equally important.

The new chamber theatre forms of children’s theatre are accepted in Kolibri Theatre. In these forms we can break free from the formal bonds of auditorium-style children’s performances and the genre can finally show its true strength. Our audience is used to the variety of repertory which entails a multi-faceted use of artistic means from puppet performances to ‘live’ theatre, from interactive poetic games to adventure tales, from monodramas to musicals. These formal traits can only be achieved by such an open, ever alert company who are willing to work hard, are interested in and receptive to new techniques: such as the company of Kolibri Theatre is.

Our connection to our own audience may be somewhat more conscious and more responsible than that of ‘grownup’ theatres. We target certain age-groups from toddlers to teenagers. We develop our repertory in a way that every age-group may find different types of productions. We play for 5-12-year–old children most often, but we stage an ever growing number of plays for teenagers and we’re launching the development of artistic programs for 0-3-year-olds with interest.

For the sake of keeping our audience, we are looking for novelties. We primarily premiere those plays that contribute to our artistic development and those that we have a reference of their standard. We cannot experiment at the expense of children, only in favor of them.

The returning guest directions of renowned Swedish and Australian stage directors of the children’s theatre scene also guarantee a certain standard. For the literary standard of the text the classics and contemporary foreign and Hungarian playwrights vouch. Music and art is outstandingly important in our productions.

Our performances for teenagers are almost without precedent in Hungary. Kolibri Theatre has built a rich youth repertory during the past years and more and more independent theatre groups discover this age group.

We are a repertory theatre at ease in several genres. We believe in the unique value creating strength of company work. The results which we attained equally reflect the strength of community and the paths of life of different personalities and individuals with various artistic qualities who inspire each other but also produce value and success individually. And all of that together contributed to the development of the present image of the theatre.

Besides the founding members and the young people who have joined the company in the meantime, regular guest-performers also have a community-forming power as well as guest stage-directors, composers and artists of fine arts from Hungary and abroad.

go to Kolibri