Through oral testimonies about the forgotten past of Knyazheska Garden and its different images in the twentieth century – of an orchard, an amusement park, a zoo, a monumental square, the VOX POPULI team undertakes a moving theatrical action in the park to revive memories and provoke social discourse about the future of this multilayered urban topos.

The specific form of theatre verbatim uses interviews with real people affected by or involved in an issue, event, or context, as well as research into specific issues with the help of specialists (sociologists, psychologists, political scientists, etc.) to construct the dramaturgy and direction of the performance. Thus we hear the stories of contemporaries of the Zoo, which was founded in the late 19th century and lasted until the 1980s. There were lionesses, a tiger, a cheetah, bison and elephants, and through the stories we draw an imaginary map of the garden. Since the 1950s, the garden has been a gathering place for the students of the 6th and 5th schools, and for years it was a place for entertainment, guitars, music, and sometimes self-indulgence – according to the memories of people still living in the area, the garden was long called “Monkey Paradise”. These stories are interspersed again with stories of the wars and the handouts children received there – a slice of bread with pate and a glass of milk. Vox Populi responds to the first edition of Nine Elephants, exploring questions around memory, acceptance of the past, responsibility towards the future and the place of imagination in working with the present.

Directed and composed by Neda Sokolovska
Starring Ina Dobreva, Iskra Yankova, Vader Akbarkhan, Andrea Dragov, Polo Okone.