Dandelion at Experimental Theatre

The Budapest-based Baltazar Theatre, founded in 1998, is a unique professional theatre company whose members are actors with mental disabilities. During the past 22 years the company has become a significant part of Hungarian theatrical life. Baltazar Theatre breaks new ground by relegating the actors’ disabilities to the background and instead, emphasising their talent. Their mission is to demonstrate the skills and artistic talent of the differently abled thus facilitating their social integration. In the course of the past two decades Baltazar Theatre Company has staged numerous critically acclaimed performances, both in Hungary and abroad, proving that the word ‘disabled’ means nothing when it comes to levels of artistic expression. Dandelion is a dance-theatre performance in two parts with an interval in between. The first part, titled Dandelion is based on 20th-century Hungarian love poems. The play is inspired by a famous 19th-century Hungarian impressionist painting and uses music from classics like Debussy, Ravel, Mozart and Bach. Dance is a poetic language, and the choreographer and the director have tried to find the connection between movements and words. The whole piece is happening as someone is lying on the grass of the spring meadow watching the clouds. It is about humans, feelings, connections, humour and beauty. The second part of the performance titled Dust is a kind of search game. What sort of dust is it after all? The one that bothers us when a gust of wind blows it into our eyes? Or the magical one in a kaleidoscope? The performance is an experiment to find out and show what we can’t do otherwise: ourselves.