site.bta48 Hours Varusha South Community Festival in Veliko Tarnovo Kicks Off with Audio-Visual Performance, Concert, Comedy Show, Exhibitions

The 48 Hours Varusha South community festival in Veliko Tarnovo kicked off on Saturday with an audio-visual performance, a concert, a comedy show and many exhibitions. It is held in the old part of the city and attracts many people from Bulgaria and abroad. Visitors to the community event can attend more than 100 different events held by more than 120 participants in nearly 50 venues. 

The first events started in the early afternoon. Visitors could see the exhibitions Think Before You Grow Up and If You Judge a Book by its Cover at the Rafael Mihaylov Exhibition Halls, and music lovers could dance at a DJ party at the Samovodska Charshiya. A little later, an Israeli visual artist based in Ireland, Moran Been-noon, gave a workshop and a performance. At the same time, on the beach by the Yantra River, Ioana Stoyanova, Elitsa Pavlova and Elena Adamova challenged people to answer a few questions about and from the river. With the answers to some of them, they will write a collective poem, and with all of them, they will assemble a festival map of the nearby encounters with the river. Students from the Humanitarian High School also took part in the festival with their Spa Centre, and Elitsa Krasteva and Polina Dimitrova held alternative school classes in the Petko Slaveykov House Museum.

Fourteen Bulgarian artists presented their contemporary art project 506 (blue), and Diana Ganeva opened her exhibition Gallop in Narrativa Gallery. Festival guests had the opportunity to see the exhibitions Waiting Rooms of Timelessness by Vladimir Drumev, The Tarnovian of Fashion Days, Changing Landscapes - Water by Lidiya Ivanova, Colorful People, Rag Dolls by Milena Milanova and Yova Petkova, Metamorph. Synthetic Aura by the Visual Studies Department at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Veliko Tarnovo. Vladislav Iliev (Vladzen) presented his photobook and installation Bulgarian Rave Archive, Nevena Ekimova - the sculptural art installation Infundibulum, and those who love adventure took part in a treasure hunt with Angalot.

The official opening of the festival was on the beach by the Yantra River, where the organizers welcomed all the attendees and thanked both guests and participants. They recalled that the first edition included 53 events, the second - nearly 80, and the current one has almost 110. The evening programme continued with the stand-up comedy show Inside Jokes and latino rhythms of the band Tropical B. Meantime, in the Lapidary of the Archaeological Museum, the audio-visual performance Particles Live Act took place, in which the sound of the classical violin mixed with modern electronics, and sounds danced and transformed through lights and pictures. There were other events at various points in the neighborhood, and the weekend poster promises many more diverse experiences for all ages and tastes.