"Etno horror picture show"
Inspiration and music after folk motives: Peter Kus
Directing and Set design: Barbara Bulatović
Text adaptation: Boštjan Gorenc Pižama
Dramaturgy and Songs: Simona Semenič
Costume design: Maja Peterlin
Light composition: Nace Hočevar
Performers: Pižama (rap) and the group Tolovaj Mataj: Peter Kus (clarinet, flutes, Istrian mih, harmonium, vocal), Jernej Pečak (violin, vocal) / alternation Katarina Šetinc (violin, vocal), Roman Ravnič (Istrian small bas, Bordun cither, vocal)
Slovene folk stories in musical clothing.
Musical performance for children from 6 years up.
Duration: 60 minutes
Opening Performance: October 2004
Festivals and performances on tour: Slovenia
'Black Kitchen' is a hybrid of genres, a mixture of a theatrical and puppet performance, of 'story telling', and folk music concert. The performance is approaching the 'theatre of objects' by bringing to life all kinds of bread rolls just baked in the bread oven, and various objects typical for the old black kitchen in Slovenia (mentrga, burkle, lopar, nečke, etc.). The classical folk story telling is replaced by the modern variation - the rap, which in spite of its style disguise serves the same function: through stories it reflects the contemporary social relations, points out the basic social archetypes giving moral advice about life, and of course, also entertaining. The music in the performance is taken after motives of folk songs and dance tunes from different parts of the Slovenian ethnic territory; in its traditional arrangements it is adapted to the group Tolovaj Mataj. Its fusion with the rap represents a radical variety of a stream, defended by Bostjan Napotnik, a prominent music critic in Slovenia, since 1996: "... I claim that rappers in Slovenia should put together cymbals, accordeons, okarinas, and other folk instruments." (Muska, May/June 1996)
In its contents, the performance Black Kitchen is an entertaining and parodic 'recycling' of the folk mithology that is usually found in selected stories like the Gipsy story How God Baked People, or the Rodica story The Žmirč Musicians, or Tolovaj Mataj, and various epic songs. The creators of the performance unclasped their strict traditional form, they re-defined the relations among their elements and liberated them of their methaphysical weight. It is their wish to make them - without embezzelment - more accessible to the contemporary apprehension of the 'fairy tale' world.
