Varusha is a bustling fresh festival I’m Veliko Tarnovo, with a great feeling of community-lead workshops, and unique musical performances. More than 120 participants—artists, creators, craftsmen, locals, businesses, and institutions—responded to the organizers’ open invitation to join the festival program with their own initiatives. Residents and visitors of Veliko Tarnovo had the opportunity to attend 108 events spread across 47 locations in the Old Town. Creatosphere was one of them.
This year we participated with the Turning Word’s into Poems, done in a newly opened space of Tyrsach creative house, which came right on time for the Varusha South festival. It’s a co-working space with a creative element where people gather to create music, write and attend workshops. With a warm welcome and support of the team there, on a hot-as-hell Saturday afternoon, we were searching for the possible meanings to turn them into poems.
Kris asked participants to pick a card to prompt the writing. “On the edge of revenge” was chosen, as it took a turn into a dark theme, but with a silver lining of forgiveness laying on the other side of the edge. Participants came up with many different interpretations for what that could mean – some took it as taking a decision between two choices, others – taking a dark path or choosing the road to forgiveness.
And very relevant to the summer weather, the second card participants picked was “Time like a watermelon”. With an inspiring insight that you never know if it is right/ripe until you try it, participants came up with funny, quirky or even inspirational poems. How many meanings could it have? Apparently, quite a lot.
Straight after the semantic warm up, Stefan from Търсач went into his Seek the Poem for a deep dive. Slowly the afternoon started combining music as well, turning into a freestyle rapping and improvised singing gathering on the lovely terrace.
Definitely coming back next summer with more activities and collaborations with Varusha South festival!
Turning words into poems is one of Creatosphere’s signature workshops. While they were all done in English so far, we’re planning to host some of them in Bulgarian as well. Let’s see what the future holds.
This is my inspiration for this theme and it is something I recently discovered as a mindset. I found new logic for my entire life through caring for another and how much hope that brings to an individual when they have to do things to make another creature’s life better and not their own. Which of course makes everyone in the equation happy.