Festival Concepts & Stage Direction
Depending on the project, my role ranged from developing the festival’s central concept to writing scripts and directing openings, closings and individual stage sequences.
The selected projects represent only part of my festival work and reflect different levels of involvement — from an original festival concept to scriptwriting and stage direction.
For the seventeenth Firework of Life Lessons festival, the opening and closing were conceived as two parts of a single story: a hero’s journey in search of happiness. Through the imagined City of the Sun, the ideas of Shalva Amonashvili’s humane pedagogy were translated not into an explanation from the stage, but into live action involving children, parents, educators and festival guests.
Firework of Life Lessons — Festival Films
How the production worked
A single concept brought together the dramaturgy, characters, festival and stage design, musical and game-based episodes, and interaction with the audience. At the opening, spectators became residents of the City of the Sun and joined the hero’s journey. At the closing, that journey reached its conclusion: the encounters and events in the City of the Sun led the hero to the answer that had set him on his way.
From opening to closing
The opening established the festival’s shared visual world and narrative frame; after several days of programming, the closing returned the audience to that frame. Game-based episodes and audience interaction translated the ideas of humane pedagogy into concrete stage situations and actions.
