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U!-BU? 2025
A PUPPET-LIVE-ACTION DADA CABARET

In Solce’s distinctive mix of acting, music, and puppetry, a team of musicians, puppeteers, and actors dismantle the world of Alfred Jarry. A grotesque portrait of society—its corruption, primitiveness, stupidity, and the fear of those in power who ceaselessly grow stronger, as well as the people’s longing for servitude—comes to life through a fusion of classical marionette “zdrekoperetta,” dadaist a cappella concert, object theatre, and merdre-poetry.

A cabaret that only shocks the audience once they return home and switch on their screens.​

adults or 16+ | 60'

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Author Matija Solce, Alfred Jarry

Director & Music Matija Solce

Visual design Larisa Kazić

Cast Miha Arh, Miha Razdrih, Matija Solce, Filip Šebšajevič, Tines Špik

HARMS FAULT! 2023
NONSENSE CONCERT ON PREPARED ACCORDION

Enter Harms’ illogical machine, a contraption that smashes glass, plays symphonies, and triggers stories, incidents, and motifs from one of the last representatives of the Russian avant-garde, Harms-Šardam, Kharms, Dandan, Harmonius… or whoever. Actor, puppeteer, and musician Matija Solce, through gentle animation of soft, realistic puppets, objects, and materials, as well as through grotesque cabaret and instrumental passages, weaves a situational comedy that challenges and provokes contemporary stereotypes through the absurdity of never-ending falling grandmothers.


adults or 16+ | 55'

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Author Matija Solce, Daniil Harms

Director, music, performer Matija Solce

Visual design Larisa Kazić

Sound design Ivo Gregorec Sedláček

Cast Matija Solce​​​​​​

  • Youtube

MITZIE LE CHEF 2023
PUPPET SKETCH FROM A POST BOX

Kuharica Micka is a scene taken from performance Kabaretluknja, based on Carroll's Alice in wonderland. In 2008 this show was the debut of Matija Solce as a director in Ljubljana puppet theatre. 10 years after putting it off the repertory, Kuharica Micka returns with the animator Miha Arh as a mini puppet show of Teatro Matita. 

On a beautiful summer day Mitzie le chef is baking cookies for the queen of hearts. There is also a child she is babysitting who makes her job even more interesting.

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​adults or 4+ | 20'

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Director Matija Solce

Visual design Maríanna Stránská

Cast Miha Arh​

THE HATCHET 2021
CONCERT & INTERMEDIAL CABARET ON A FIRE ENGINE

“Did you hear that? Martin Krpan, a humble farmer (well, a smuggler), transporting salt (or rather gunpowder) across the border in the 19th century, saved the Habsburg Empire with his sword (well, a hatchet)! It was a very cold day on the Italian border...”

A Slovenian legend meets five actors, a pile of objects, and a fire engine. They tear the story apart and recreate it as a concert, playful comedy, object theatre, and improvised performance.

An inclusive fusion where actors meet puppets, rock meets folk, postmodernism meets tradition, and the audience becomes part of the inn Pr Tauzlu. There, stories — helped along by a glass of brandy (or two) — come back to life, often more vividly than reality itself.

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adults or 16+ | 60'


Director and Music Matija Solce

Stage design and Costumes Larisa Kazić

Puppets Brane Solce, Sanja Fidler

Cast Miha Arh, Miha Razdrih, Matija Solce, Filip Šebšajevič, Tines Špik​​​

  • Youtube

BEING DON QUICHOTTE
TRAGICOMEDY FOR TWO ACTORS AND A PUPPET

Inspired by Cervantes’ Don Quixote and the surreal visual world of Jan Švankmajer, this puppet performance transforms the fight with windmills into a clash between idealism and survival, tradition and postmodernity, artist and society.

The tragicomedy begins with a poor puppeteer who has no stage, no lights, and only a single marionette to make his way through life. Constantly interrupted by a manager determined to create a commercial hit, the simple traditional puppet show spirals into physical theatre, commedia dell’arte, and surrealistic scenes in which the stage spreads throughout the space and the audience becomes actively involved.

After the puppet cuts her strings, the puppeteer loses his job, and the audience abandons the disastrous performance. Yet from the ruins of the failed show, new ideas begin to grow again.

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adults or 16+ | 60'


Director Vida Cerkvenik Bren, Matija Solce

Music and stage design Matija Solce

Dramaturgy Miha Razdrih

Puppet Mitja Ritmanič

Cast Matija Solce, Filip Šebšajevič / Tines Špik​​​​

  • Youtube

DOG'S LIFE 2016
OBJECT-THEATRE SHOW ON LIFE OF KAREL ČAPEK

Based on Karel Čapek’s Dashenka and the personal experiences of its creators, Dog’s Life follows the world through the eyes of a young puppy discovering life for the first time. Through playful object theatre, live music, and visual imagination, the performance explores the relationship between innocence and ideology, freedom and control.

For Dashenka, life is most dog-like when a human foot steps on her tail. But in the years before the Second World War, it was a dog’s life for those who stood up against the growing force of propaganda and political manipulation. Čapek’s playful language is transformed into Dadaist images made from shoeboxes, everyday objects, and live-created soundscapes. Music emerges on stage from random noises and unexpected encounters, turning stories into melodies and performance into concert.

Balancing humour, tenderness, and subtle social criticism, Dog’s Life is a poetic journey through a puppy’s first discoveries—and a reflection on the world humans leave behind.

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adults or 15+ | 60'

 

Director, music, stage design, performer Matija Solce

Dramaturgy Ariel Doron, Sara Evelyn Brown

  • Youtube

PAVLIHA REVIVAL 2014
NONSENSE CONCERT ON PREPARED ACCORDION

From the tradition of Commedia dell’arte, Everyman, Hanswurst, Pulcinella and Harlequin sprouts a new puppetry hero, a revolutionary of this day and age — the Slovenian Pavliha.

With traditional hand puppets, street humour and sharp political satire, Pavliha Revival brings the rebellious spirit of Renaissance Italy into the present. No one is spared from Pavliha’s jokes, yet nothing can be taken too seriously — after all, they are just puppets!

An almost-forgotten folk hero returns to shake us awake in times when even laughter seems irrelevant. Pavliha Revival is a simple yet rhythmically and technically refined puppet performance for audiences of all ages.

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adults or 14+ | 40'

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Director, music, performer Matija Solce

Dramaturgy Jelena Sitar Cvetko

HAPPY BONES 2012
DARK OBJECT-THEATRE SHOW

Bunch of bones, all collected from different parts of the world, a small coffin and a stuffed panda. Like a cheerful alchemist the puppeteer makes characters, emotions and entanglements pop out of inanimate matter. Simple bones, without using a single word, tell their stories about solitude. Who is the puppet and who is the animator? Who is dead and who is alive? Object theater in its most raw form, shows its endless possibilities. Dadaistic partiture, ironic black comedy, that every second changes the perspective of the viewer, surprises and makes you laugh. Until you realize that you are just a part of a bigger game. Game of death. 

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adults or 7+ | 60'

 

Author, music and performer Matija Solce

Direction Vida Bren Cerkvenik, Matija Solce

  • Youtube

ATTENSTION MOOSE! 2010
OBJECTS & PUPPETS WITH LIVE MUSIC

A simple story explores communication between humans and animals and the cruelty of life, into which one can be born as either a hen or a hunter. Music plays an especially important role, characterizing sounds and closely accompanying the narrator, an elk, who guides the audience through the story. Each scene features puppets made from different objects, stimulating the viewers’ imagination and allowing them to experience the performance on another level. While children enjoy the rhythms, melodies, comedy and improvisation, adults will recognize the tragic aspects of the story.

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adults or 7+ | 45'

 

Author, director, stage design, performer Matija Solce

Music Matija Solce, Stefan Hedborg

Dramaturgy Tina Glenvik

Cast Matija Solce, Filip Šebšajevič

  • Youtube

LITTLE NIGHT TALES 2003
EXPRESSIVE PUPPETS WITH LIVE MUSIC

When night falls and the world quiets down, a writer tries to write a short story. But the words refuse to flow onto the paper as he would like. After several unsuccessful attempts, he puts down his pen and falls asleep. Yet the story is only just beginning. In the darkness of the night, the objects around him and the characters he has imagined come to life, weaving stories and tales of their own.

A puppet performance for all generations, featuring puppets with original animation mechanisms invented and directed by Matija Solce.

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adults or 4+ | 50'

 

Author, Puppets, performer Matija Solce

Director Matija Solce, Vida Cerkvenik Bren

Musician Always Different

  • Youtube

E'BEH? 2002
ORIGINAL INTERPRETATION OF PUPPET TRADITION

The show builds on comical situations and is based on the traditional Italian character of Pulcinella, who knows no authority or fear. It is a form of puppet minimalism in which a puppet is first created out of nothing, then comes to life and immediately finds a partner to play with. Pulcinella comes face-to-face with characters such as the dog and Death, but unlike in the traditional story, there is no winner in the end.

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adults or 5+ | 40'

 

Director, music, performer Matija Solce

  • Youtube
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