Soft Dreams

The City Theatre, Žilina, 1995
Author: Miroslav Benka
Directed by Miroslav Benka

about the production

“With respect to all demands for expression through motion and music – the experiences and vision of world just breathed at me from the native country of the director..."
(Pavol Palkovič)

“From time to time, I have met with theatre ensembles of former Yugoslavia at the international festivals. Despite this, until now I have not yet experienced and I have not come across a Yugoslavian director who is of Slovak descent, who directs Slovak professional theatre ensemble and who stamped on its image a sign of “southern provenance”, whereby the ensemble presents itself by rendering a very suggestive expression where interference among the visual artistic sign, performing expression, director's creative comprehension, bound with an expression of cosmogony tense situation, has an extraordinarily authentic and artistically convincing impression in experiences of the stage production shape.“
(Karol Horák)

creators

director, script, set design and illuminations: Miroslav Benka
music: Vangelis, Diamanda Galas, Dead Can Dance
choreography, animation: Zdeno Kožík, Beata Cabadajová, Milan Mráz, Ján Demko, Katarína Kováčiková, Mária Lalková, Silvia Piláriková, Soňa Drábková, Monika Vodjanická, Alžbeta Danihelová, Peter Dolinajec, Richard  Závodský,  Marek Jurina, Roman Komačka

director

"The young director Miroslav Benka who came from Stará Pazova to make his living in Slovakia, staged an interesting choreographical play The Soft Dreams in which he followed the attempts and experiences with such a type of theatre. He approached the actors and young dancers from Žilina to collaborate with him. The motto:  Reminiscences of the Shadows of the Forgotten Ancestors already expresses the main idea of the scriptwriter, director, set designer and author of illuminations in one person. The script does not tell any story: outwardly jointly incoherent acts, unconnected with each other, are comprehensible and legible for the audience. The acts are mutually interwoven with a common thread – the fate of a man whom you can hardly avoid. ... through the mediation of the Reminiscences of the Shadows of the Forgotten Ancestors, the spectators may experience their own apocalypse, they may move on further to the future full of desperate hopelessness, salvation, the remains of human message."

(Dagmar Podmaková)