About
We started with original puppet theatre employing heavy wooden puppets inspired by Hieronymus Bosch’s paintings. We tried to identify with the bizarre Bosch’s characters, what type of people were they to have become the “surrealistic” wierdos from the paintings of Heywein or Garden of Earthly Delights?
Later on, we made a playful puppet play using the Gallows Songs by Christian Morgenstern called Morgenstern and the Evening Star. Two funnels go through a dark night, talk to each other in a non-existent language and are heading for a meeting with the sheep-moon.
Then followed highly artistic plays Étaín – from Celtic Myths and Around the World in a Teapot inspired by Edward Lear. In the Teapot, a camera was used for the first time recording live painting of a watercolour on canvas on stage.
In 2012, Apple launched a beautiful app Paper 53 that lends itself easily for on-stage use. And so we experimented and searched until one year later we contrived a combination of a two-dimensional drawing with a masque, a puppet and an actor. In 2013, Drawing in Motion and in 2014 a children’s story about an egg – My Little Eye Pet were finished.
The latest play To Somewhere Else is drawn and projected in real time on a screen and two actors and is accompanied by live music by the Zabelov Group using drums, accordion, trumpet and other musical instruments, including the digital ones.
We cooperate with a floating team of artists from different countries, perform on festivals, in preschools, schools and theatres in the Czech Republic and often in Germany.
We are interested in poetics, nonsense, surrealism but also in collaboration with scientists, contemporary music, live music, environmental issues and the current topics of immigration and freedom.
If you want us – contact us.
Core Team
Michaela Bartoňová
Michaela is a creative person that feels the urge to create in any environment, at any time and in various ways. Her work is the crossroads of several artistic genres intersecting, meeting and affecting each other. The genres are painting, drawing and puppet design, stage design, storytelling and writing.
She has initiated and in a team created 8 puppet plays and 3 multimedia shows for Tineola.
Lately, she has been mainly into iPad painting and drawing. It is means of expression that is more up-to-date and more easily comprehensible worldwide. The way she perceives and interprets world as seen in her other art can be found also in her digital work.
There is enough space for fantasy, intuitive painting, humour and reaching for new paths, and also for combing unusual materials and forms. She attempts to employ the spectator’s imagination while leaving him/her enough space for his/her own associations.
Her object and puppet aesthetics draws on the best of the Czech puppetry adding character expression and archetypal features.
More information about Michaela. Actual Video 2022 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTrPuInS7iI
Ralf Lücke
Ralf is an actor, mime and dancer. He has been working with Tineola since 1998, e.g. on Heywein, a Hieronymus Bosch inspired performance, and Morgenstern and the Evening Star, a puppet show for children with Gallows Songs by Christian Morgenstern. In 2004, Ralf founded Theater Rafael Zwischenraum that works in association with Tineola also on the new digital projects. He performs in Drawing in Motion since 2013, for which he also composed the music, just as for the children’s performance My Little Eye Pet. “Theatre is a sensual experience for everyone, the spectators and the actors. On stage, an actor relives characters he impersonates and through the actor the audience share the same experience. It is a rather special form of communication, highly specific and non-verbal in the first place. For us, since we are people of different nationalities, this is a very important aspect of our work.”
Collaborators
Zabelov Group (Jan Šikl and Roman Zabelov)
Zabelov Group is a music duo of Roman Zabelov, a Belorussian accordionist, and Jan Šikl, a Czech musician. Their cinematic music is a well-balanced combination of ambient music, contemporary jazz, minimalism, groove and break beats. Besides concerting, Zabelov Group also accompanies scenic projects or together with Berg Orchestra explores overlaps with contemporary classical music. Zabelov Group was listed one of the discoveries on the alternative scene for 2014 in the music critics’ survey and they have had the chance to convince the Czech audience of this several times as a support band for the Scottish Hidden Orchestra.
Artur Müller
Artur is a freelance designer, web designer and app designer. He has worked for companies in different fields, such as Prague Youth Theater, Videorecruit, Škoda Auto and The Language Gallery. He helps his clients to create websites that make sense, work well and in addition are visually attractive having wit and spark. He has been working for Tineola for many years as a graphic and typography designer, photographer and marketing consultant and has designed this web site for us.
Barbora Skalová
A professional translator and interior designer. Barbora has been translating professional, usually medical, texts for many years, but for us the texts have always been concerned with theatre, puppets and arts. She is quick, accurate and is able get the feel for many varying topics. She has been consulted for design, aesthetics and young perception of our work.
Milan Konečný
The team centred around wood carver Milan Konečný has a broad range of activities, starting from puppets and animated film production to puppet theatre, original furniture and specific advertisement, animation and theatre props. Milan’s team has worked with Tineola on Noe’s Arch in Netherlands, on puppet shows for Germany as well as on technical solutions for multimedia stage for To Somewhere Else.
Jiří Helcel
Jiří is a carver and visual artist working on his own projects for animated film. He makes wooden puppets and objects. He has been working for Tineola as a carver for many years but also holds woodcarving workshops with Michaela for international applicants.
Mark Pitman
Mark is a director, mime and a puppeteer living and working in Norwich, England. He studied Jacques Lecoque’s school in Paris and then founded Garlic Theatre. Mark teaches, performs, and holds puppet and masque making workshops. Mark has directed three Tineola plays: Moregenstern and the Evening Star, Aroud the World in a Tea Pot and Drawing in Motion.
“I am interested in the process of discovering the actual playfulness between the actor and the spectator. For me, theatre is a process of discovering how to extract simplicity from a complex of ideas and thoughts and how to find freedom to open up your imagination for journeys to bizarre and obscure worlds.”
Azadeh Kangarani
Azadeh Mohammadi Kangarani is an actor, theatre director, producer and dramaturge. She has graduated from Prague DAMU (Academy of Performing Arts). The most significant play she directed is Moment of Silence written by Mohammad Yaghoubi, a controversial Iranian writer. She has also written a play called Pink Labyrinth and has worked on Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida adaptation in Prague. In 2015-16, she lectured Erasmus students in DAMU. She has been working with Tineola for the third year in row.
“Theatre directing in the Czech Republic has become my practical tool for communication with what is around me. A can continue my profession and express myself through directing of plays. This ‘tool’ that unites different cultures offers a new, different view of the world to the audience. And through that even I realize how much I know about myself and discover what really is worth it and what I really desire to share.”
Contact Us
If you are interested in and enjoy non-traditional theatrical forms: visual, non-verbal, poetic, digital, playful or serious with live drawing on stage, please contact us at:
tineola@tineola.cz