Domovoi goes to Avignon!!!

This is what it's all about

Our tragicomic theatre piece KTO TAM? is going to Festival OFF Avignon 2025, the world’s largest theatre showcase, from July 5 to July 26, 2025, at the Théâtre la Luna (salle 3), with 1 performance per day at 10:00 o’clock in the morning (Wednesdays are the days-off, the 9th, 16th and 23rd July). This is both a unique opportunity and huge financial risk for our Ticino-based theatre company DOMOVOI to present our play at this legendary festival, which serves as a significant platform for high-calibre performances, new collaborations and audiences from all over the world.

However, what is a risk in the face of dream and passion? Originally created in 2020, KTO TAM? has already been performed over 70 times in Switzerland, Germany, Italy, North Macedonia, Russia, and Uganda. Now, we are going to France and to Festival Avignon for the first time. Our international team is extremely excited for this opportunity of a lifetime!

...a story of Domovoi

Kto tam? (Who’s there?) is a tragicomic performance built on a delicate interplay of dramatic clowning, object theatre, poetic gestures and visual metaphors. It’s a story, without any spoken text, about little house brownie, Domovoi, who’s left alone in a house abandoned by humans. An existential drama that transcends cultural-linguistic barriers and is accessible to audiences of all ages—from 6 to 99 years old. We chose KTO TAM? because it is our most widely toured, most adaptable, and most easily transportable production.

Ours is an attempt to make another step forward in the development of our own theatre language where clowning is not only funny resolutions to problems on stage, but it serves as a vehicle for creating a strong world with atmosphere, character and its drama. Igor Mamlenkov, artistic director of CIE DOMOVOI, lead performer, got together with young Odessa-born director Kostya Novitskiy, to work on the dramaturgy, mise-en-scène of the piece, to step away from sketch-to-sketch structure and create a homogeneous theatre narration with multiple levels. Then our Italian technician and sound designer, Danilo Gervasoni, who crafted a whimsical soundscape to support the action, using compositions by Luiz Murakami. Our main goal was to create a synthetic theatre piece —one that tells a story and moves the audience through the lens of a tragicomic character and visual symbols.

One of the main objectives is to transmit PEACE and kindness through the art of non-spoken theatre - movement, gestures, dance, poetry. And to live the dream of many artists, to participate in the legendary Festival Avignon. That’s in terms of heart. In terms of production, we aim at sharing our vision of theatre and worldview in hope of gaining new contacts, new audiences and bookings as well as international long-term collaborations in order to tour in the French-speaking parts of Europe. The show has also received exceptional press acclaim, reinforcing our belief in its power to connect with people across cultures and languages.

«Kto Tam? doesn’t check passports… it’s an invitation for everyone, children and adults alike, to make peace with silence—a promise to rediscover meaning in small, lost things that may still exist somewhere, just beyond a door left slightly ajar.» — LaRegione (CH)

Why do we need your support

Our expenses comprehend - the salaries for the entire team (6 people), necessary equipment (adaptors, cables, QLab licence etc.), travel & food, housing at Avignon (3 people plus volunteers), RC & LAINF insurances, scenography anti-fire treatments, video recording & editing, rehearsals and dramaturgy sessions, printing & promo expenses, social security payments, registration at Festival Off, etc.), which would be ideally 40’000.- CHF.

Since our budget includes significant expenses and Swiss public institutions such as Pro Helvetia (which only supports Sélection Suisse en Avignon) or the DECS of the Canton of Ticino (which only funds new productions or annual activities) do not provide any financial support, we have relied on private foundations. We are lucky enough to have already received commitments from the Ernst Göhner Foundation, MIGROS «ici. insieme qui», the Claire Sturzenegger-Jeanfavre Foundation, Stiftung Anne-Marie Schindler. And we are even more lucky that Teatro Darsena (Magadino, CH) has given us their rehearsal space for free in order to work on the show furthermore. All in all, we have some 15’000 CHF which covers just a part of our extensive budget. With the sale of tickets, we’ll try our best to get back some of the invested money, however the competition is high with 1’660 theatre companies participating in the Festival OFF. So, the funds we have received so far are only sufficient to cover approximately 50% of all salaries and expenses.

We love our work, and we have been working hard on this Avignon project since November 2024. We cherish the beautiful moments of our craft, but it is also our livelihood.

To make this madness adventure come true, we’d need to complete this wemakeit campaign and be able to ensure that all our collaborators are paid, fed and have a place to sleep, and to be able to offer the best work of performing art that we can. Help us to make it to Avignon!