This Saturday, Tallinn, 2011’s European Capital of Culture, will be host to one of Estonia’s largest international street festivals, featuring puppet art, dance, theater, art exhibitions and music events: Tallinn Treff Festival. There are over 700 performers expected, from 18 countries around the world.
There will be more than 150 performances during the five days of the festival. There will be street performances, as well as performances in specialized venues. During the festival, visitors can see the “1000 Puppets” exhibition at the Puppet Museum, as well as a city-wide exhibition of Penosil foam sculptures.
The main focus of the festival is on puppet theater. Some of the best contemporary puppet theater companies in the world will present shows such as Duda Paiva Company’s „Bastard“ (Netherlands), Compagnie Sans Soucis’ „Hamlet/Machine” (France), Compagnie Une de Plus’ „Trois” (France), Editta Braun Company „Luvos, vol. 2“ (Austria), Big Puppet Theatre of St Petersburg’s „We“ (Russia), Quanzhou Marionette Troupe’s „Ancient Arts, New Paths“ (China), and many others.
The Lai Street, at the heart of Tallinn’s Old Town, will fill up with music, joy and laughter this weekend. Some of the world’s leading visual artists will show new-generation theater from Estonia and abroad, to a large audience. Theater is performed by professional artists, but also by students from various countries.
Tallinn Treff Festival originated in 1991 as a initiative of the Estonian State Puppet Theatre. Since then the festival has evolved into a large-scale theatre festival and from 2006 started to take place under the name of Tallinn Treff Festival.
The festival begins Saturday, May 28, and lasts till June 1, 2011. There will be live performances every day, between 10:00 and 23:00. Street programme will start every day from 12 at noon and finish at 4 pm, and are all free of charge.