SET DESIGNER / COSTUME DESIGNER / MEDIA ARTIST

" The ballet performance of Sofia Opera and Mila Iskrenova's "TOCCATA BULGARA" offers a game of several major metaphors. The Hand - the Suitcase - the Road - the Departure - the Disappearance - the Revival. All of them have been played out  against the backdrop of various frames of our national and ancestral memory (historical places, events and characters depicted by a very dynamic and original multimedia language) . The choreography develops main themes of our historical and spiritual conditioned environments: the patriarchal threshold of the family - the Bulgarian cult of beauty - the ideal of collective and personal freedom - the self-sacrifice.

Major figure in the show is the Suitcase - this contemporary ominous carrier of the Bulgarian to the Unknown. The Suitcase - the guide of our blind nation who crosses the red traffic semaphore through the crossroads of the world.

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But this ever-expanding dance, this physical vortex, culminating increasingly  by the brilliant choreography embodies most of all the panic emigration of Bulgarian nation, chased by its devastating present..."

Quote  from the review of Nedyalko Slavov -

poet and playwright for

CULTURE - Leading Portal for Culture, Art and Society

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" Mila Iskrenova gathered in a suitcase our ancestral memory

 Choreographer Mila Iskrenova met the modern ballet with the classical one on stage at the Sofia Opera.

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 Black and white photos of gone long ago glorious men from the history of Bulgaria - hajduks, revolutionaries, intellectuals, as well as  wedding couples in traditional folklore costumes appear as background during the show. Without claiming patriotic ideas, or for the so-modern recently return to the roots, "TOCCATA BULGARA" invites the spectator recalling  his ancestors in a personal, intimate, family plan. "

NOVINAR, daily journal

"Extremely precise in its details, beautiful and exciting (clamping your throat of pleasure!) Spectacle that MUST NOT BE MISSED!"

Georgi Arnaudov - composer

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