The New Bulgarian University in Sofia has started the first annual university festival of arts and culture in Sozopol, to commemorate the institute's 10th birthday.

Yildiz Ibrahimova, an experienced jazz singer, and Vuzkresia Vihurova (a theatre director), together with Zarko Uzunov (architect) will be leading workshops as part of the festival program which starts on September 12. The organizers are trying to transform the event, which has been named Dionisia, into an international happening. To this end, they have invited observers from Italy, Finland, Russia, Greece, England, Norway, Hungary, Switzerland and Russia to the five-day workshops.

The festival will offer an interdisciplinary summer school of contemporary theories and practice in performing arts. One workshop, Difference and Identity, includes practical training in the field of performing arts. Another part of the festival will be an open discussion (roundtable for young theatre directors), which will be led only in English.

The final part of the educational program is the school of semiotics, which will be organized by NBU's department of semiotics.

"Sozopol (old town), an architecture reservation at the Bulgarian Black Sea shore, is the most appropriate place for conveying the art of performing," said Irina Mineva, co-ordinator of NBU's Theatre of the Naked Snail.

She said the first edition of the festival will consist of scientific forums, conferences, seminars, theatre performances, cinema (film and animation) and fashion reviews. The fashion shows have been prepared by Professor Georg Kraev and will present authentic folklore costumes from the 19th century. Ivan Marazov's book The Thracians and Wine will be introduced to the public after the fashion night on Thursday.

Every evening from September 12 to 18 concerts by students in the musical department of the university will be performed. Man is Man by Bertold Breht and Olden Times by Harold Pinter will be performed by fourth-year students of the university on the weekend.

Another of the festival's workshops, Dance on the Margins, will last for three days and teach participants the relationship between music and movement during different periods of Bulgarian music. The lessons will pass through the following phases: learning the folklore dance, altering its structure and then restructuring it in a new dance.

This workshop represents one form-creating system, which is used by the authors and leaders of the workshops in their constant efforts to improve theatre performance and develop training methods. Vazkressia Vicharova and Zarko Uzunov lead this workshop.

Without Margins, a vocal workshop, will begin on September 15 and last for two days. It deals with the differences and similarities between Bulgarian and Turkish music expressed by the human voice - from a child's goodnight song to popular folk music. The orientation of the workshop is on discovering new and different melodic connections, which remove and overcome ethnic and geographic differences.

Balkan film directors, actors and students in the field will join the discussion section of Dionisia. The future of the theatre director in the new millennium and redefining his function in times of great changes leading to democracy and civil society in the regions of transition will be a topical subject. In addition, the problem of contemporary theatre education will be accentuated. Participants are invited to share their experiences (in 15 minute written abstracts) in dealing with the problem of transition from education to career in their countries. Also of interest is how that transition was facilitated (or not) by the school, cultural politics and alternative cultural politics in their countries.

"The discussion aims to create space for a constructive dialogue on the problems of contemporary theatre directing measured in the standards of democratic and civil society," said Deyan Damianovski, a festival organizer and recent graduate of NBU's performing arts and directing program.

Late in the evenings, the atmosphere in Sozopol will be livened up by the music of Dune, Globa, Arya, Fashion, VDV and Zatvoreno bands. A folklore trio will also be presenting a pop arrangement of authentic Thracian folklore.