Int'l puppet festival to be held in Baku
By Nigar Orujova
Baku will host the next International Puppet Theater Festival bringing together leading puppet theaters of the world, AzerTac state news agency reported.
According to the State Puppet Theater head Rashad Ahmadzadeh, the second such festival -- which is organized by the Azerbaijan Ministry of Culture and Tourism -- is expected to be held in late October or November.
According to the ministry, along with plays, the festival will host master classes, which will be conducted by professionals from world-famous puppet theaters.
Baku hosted the first International Puppet Theater Festival in November 2011. The last festival brought together 25 puppet theaters from 20 countries. Experts from the United Kingdom, Austria, Spain and Turkey gave master classes as part of the first festival.
Following the festival, Azerbaijan became a member of the International Puppetry Association, or Union Internationale de la Marionnette (UNIMA).
Azerbaijan was represented at the event by a theater led by Rauf Afshar with the play "Wedding of a Merchant".
Theater art development in Azerbaijani culture has a long history which starts with theatrical elements of open-air folk performances, religious ceremonies, ashugs - Caucasian folk poets and singers - playing national instruments and narrating folk epics, traditional Islamic mystery plays, mythology and dervish dances. Puppet performance traditions in Azerbaijan date back to the Middle Ages.
However, professional theater appeared at the end of the 19th century.
Azerbaijan State Puppet Theatre was created in 1931, though the theater building was constructed as early as in 1908. The theater was established by Mollaga Babirli and the first performance was staged in 1932.
The Theater was a participant of international puppet theater festivals (Tashkent, 1979, Bombay, 1980) and the South Caucasus (Yerevan, 1982, Tbilisi, 1984). The theater has been named after prominent Azerbaijani writer Abdulla Shaig since 1974.
At present, the Theater performs in Azerbaijani and Russian languages for children and adults alike. Plays of Azerbaijani, Russian and western European playwrights are staged in the theater, including Haji Gara by Mirza Fatali Akhundov, The Doctor In Spite of Himself by Jean Baptiste Moliere, Almaz by Jafar Jabbarli, and Big Ivan by Sergey Obraztsov.