Ardeshir Salehpour says about his experience in UNIMA-Armenia festival

“Plays from France, Ukraine and Armenia were the best and given awards in some sections. Meanwhile, there were also some average plays which were generally performed for kids and villagers.” Ardeshir Salehpour, a member of the jury of UNIMA-Armenia’s 8th international festival of puppet theatres and one of the speakers of this festival who has just returned to Iran, said in an interview with IranTheater.
“Two Iranian plays were given award at the festival and I do believe that these two plays were among the bests of HUNIMA-Armenia festival. It shows our capabilities in the field of puppet theatres.” Salehpour added.
Referring to the shining of “Merry Adventures of Little- Red-Riding-Hood and the Bad Big Wolf”, an interactive puppet show by Sina Yeylagh-Beygi and Salma Mohseni, he added that “it was a new reading of ‘Little- Red-Riding-Hood’, performed in the form of puppet show. The jury was really interested in the puppet show and titled it the best from the 'new vision' point of view and was given this field’s award.
Salehpour went on to say that “another Iranian play, called 'marshmallow', performed in the theatrical event. “Marshmallow” by Ade Beygdjani, Albert Beygdhani’s daughter, was an incredible monodrama puppet theatre. The monodrama was designed and stared by Ade Beygdjani and the paintings of the show, was done by herself, too. This puppet show was not given any award, just because it was not in the contest section of the festival, but technically speaking and from the perspective of performance, it was an interesting and creative work of art, and showed that, years of holding puppet theatre festivals in the country, had worked and that these events had improved Iran’s puppet theatre. Interestingly, all the foreign participants in the theatrical event, knew Iran’s “Mubarak-UNIMA” festival, and mentioned it with respect.
Pointing out that a Russian, an Ukrainian and an Armenian were the other members of the jury, Salehpour who also was a speaker at the event, said "I delivered a speech on effigies and puppets in ancient Iran. The audience, specially were interested in that part of speech which was about the position of effigies and puppets in Iranian culture and civilization and their historical origins."
"this international festival was hold in Dsegh village of Lori region, the native village of the greatest Armenian writer Hovhannes Tumanyan. Tumanyan who wrote poems, quatrains, ballads, novels, fables, critical and journalistic articles, is considered to be the national poet of Armenia and his stand in Armenian literature is like that of  Sa'adi and Hafiz in ours." The researcher in the field of theatre, added.
Salehpour went on to say that "plays from Russia, France, Ukraine, Dagestan, Armenia, Iran, and Georgia had participated in this year's event. The festival was subject free and any puppet show could take part in the theatrical event."
UNIMA-Armenia’s 8th international festival of puppet theatres was hold from 5-11 September 2013, in Dsegh village, Armenia.