THE UNSEEN THEATER
FOUNDATION
OUR MISSION
Unseen Theater is the first and only in the world history of human civilization a troupe of blind actors who work in the field of visual theater: the Theater of Shadows, the Marionette Theater and the Theater of Visual Impression.
Nevizdan Theater was created by Dr. Velimir Velev more than six years ago and is the result of his ten years of work with blind youth - a completely voluntary activity far from social projects, targeted programs, without funding, without media (PR) ostentation, work with lots of love, soul and heart!
On the basis of his twenty years of pedagogical and theatrical experience, only a few years after the beginning, Velev created a unique theatrical pedagogical system for working with the blind, which gave birth to a phenomenon, unique and unrepeatable of its kind worldwide - Unseen Theater! With zero vision, without visual control, relying on their inner "sight" and intuition, blind actors draw on large screens, create and animate shadows, animate puppets from a great distance using guides with dozens of threads. These are skills difficult to achieve, even for the majority of sighted professional drama actors, and absolutely impossible for the blind.
The professional skills of blind actors and the level of art they create take them far above the categories of "disabled theater" and "art therapy" and place them in the ranks of "sighted" professionals. Something more:
Unseen Theater has been hailed by critics as a true phenomenon in professional theater.
Unseen Theater is outside the categories "Theatre for people with disabilities", whose goals are aimed at art therapy, support, socialization and rehabilitation of people with disabilities in the mind of society. The blind actors from the Invisible Theater, here on stage, do things that are impossible even for many of the sighted - so they don't have to prove themselves. What's more: Creating, without sight, visual theater (shadow theater, puppets and visual impressions), they not only shock, crossing the border of the impossible, but also create a high sample of art. They have no need for compassion, tolerance or leniency. They just respect! So strong that they startle - they wake us up to "see" our lives through their "look". They make us reconsider, get out of the rut of habit or lethargy, break free from the grip of momentum and ambition, see the world with "new" eyes, to recall long-forgotten human values and ideals.
They work for all of us. Unpretentiously, through their art, sharing their humble life experiences, they actually help us viewers to think about ourselves, our choices, our own existence and make a change. We can assume that this is a new moral aesthetic platform for theater for the blind, also unseen before!
I think they have surpassed us in their strength of spirit and ability to live. "They don't need us, we need them to awaken our morality in this spiritless time!", are the words of the legend of the Bulgarian theater, Yulia Ognyanova.
Therefore, if we, in turn, decide to support them, we will actually be supporting ourselves!
Velimir Velev
OUR VISION
OUR GOALS
UNSEEN Theater for its own stage
Obtaining its own space will enable the existence of the troupe and its future creative work, thus:
It will support the birth and development of a new theatrical phenomenon.
It will expand the boundaries of artistic language in the performing arts to territories beyond human possibility and explore them as new spaces for artistic expression and moral impact on the viewer.
It will promote the troupe as a different non-standard theatrical phenomenon.
It will provoke the criteria of a Bulgarianthe viewer and his inner need for valuable art, different from show business.
OWN STAGE for the Unseen Theater means a "permanent physical center and gravity" that will enable new audiences to be attracted to theater art. (The messages in his troupe's theatrical performances have a strong impact on any type of audience, regardless of their cultural attitude and mentality and really attract people from diametrically opposite cultural strata of our society. It is already forming its audience, different from the usual until now - the permanent stage will greatly support this process.
It will enable the actors from VIA Theater to collaborate with the actors from the Unseen Theaterand assist in their projects. (The troupe of the blind until now receives professional support in its work from the actors of the informal troupe of VIA Theater - Sofia)
It will enable the troupe to explore and expand the boundaries of their art and perform their shows
It will provide an opportunity to start a professional theater school for the blind, something also lacking not only in our country but also abroad
It will provide an opportunity to hold workshops and theater workshops for professional actors using a methodology related to the specifics of training for the blind.
The activity of the theater on its permanent stage will help to emphasize the authority and contribution of Bulgarian culture to the wealth of European cultural diversity - the troupe with its unique production has proven its ability to increase interest in our country.
