The all-round puppet artist Alenka Pirjevec marked her 80th birthday in 2025. On this occasion, she donated her puppet creations to the Slovenian Theatre Institute – Theatre Museum.
The exhibition Alenka makes puppets presents an important part of Alenka Pirjevec's body of work, focusing on her author projects, as well as on the productions for which she created original puppets. We follow her career from the performance of Ivan Cankar's Depravity in St. Florian Valley (1994), in which Pirjevec’s puppets first appeared on the Slovenian stage, to First Love , the production of ŠKUC Theatre (2017), which completed her career of a puppeteer.
The exhibition was on display in the Hall of the Slovenian Theatre Institute from June 12, 2025 to February 8, 2026.
ALENKA PIRJEVEC has worked as a versatile puppet artist for over four decades. In the course of her rich and diverse creative oeuvre she has proven herself as dramatic actor and/or puppet animator (she has performed in over 70 puppet productions), as director, dramaturg, author of the visual design of the production, set designer, puppet designer and puppet maker, as well as mentor. For two years, she even held the function of artistic director of the Ljubljana Puppet Theatre. She has also worked internationally - During the 1990s, she was the president of UNIMA Slovenia, she has performed extensively in Europe, and twice she has presented Slovenian puppetry with performances and workshops on a tour of Japan. She has received several awards for her work.
Puppets have been an inseparable part of Alenka's life, in fact, of her very self, her innermost being. In her Master's thesis, Invisible Space between the Actor and the Puppet – she embarked on her Master's studies as an artist full of energy and creative curiosity in 1999, at the age of 54 – in the chapter on the methodology of working with puppets, she wrote: "If the actor brings the puppet to life with their breathing, they /.../ give it their own expression, all of their emotions and thoughts, whether this should involve text or they just do it with movement alone, without using words. When they have worked with the puppet according to this principle long enough, their next observation will be that they have become a substantial whole with the puppet, regardless of the physical distance of the puppet from the actor. The moment has arrived when the actor identifies with the puppet, accepts it as part of themself, no longer just on the physical level, but also mentally and emotionally. This is also the stage when the actor starts loving the puppet; they open up to it and surrender to it."
Among her many accomplished acting and/or animation creations at the Ljubljana Puppet Theatre, Alenka Pirjevec has particularly endeared herself to younger and older audiences with her interpretation of mischievous and inventive characters. Her stage creations have often demonstrated a gift for comicality and a lively stage rhythm. On the other hand, she has shown a talent for creating poetic, subtle dramatic figures. As an actress, she was able to put herself in the background, to give the floor to the puppet, to identify with it completely. Reviewers have also repeatedly pointed out her dedication, her sense of harmonious ensemble acting and her ‘mastery of the culture of movement’.
Alenka Pirjevec is also a superb maker of puppets, or rather, the queen of all puppets – the marionette. But it is not just skilful hands that suffice. On the contrary, it takes mastery of puppet-making techniques, knowledge of materials and physiognomy, and, of course, talent and a vivid imagination. And, of course, years of experience as an actress and animator also had their share in achieving this excellence. Or, as Alenka writes in her aforementioned Master's thesis: "Whenever I decide to start working on a production, I always have in mind the visual image of the performance and its performance requirements from the very beginning, both at the level of the making of puppet elements and at the level of the acting animation of individual puppets. What do I mean by that? I mean that at the time of planning and designing a particular puppet, I am already thinking about what I am going to do with it once it is finished, and why I am going to do it. That is to say, my acting work starts as soon as I take a piece of wood and start sawing. Through all the stages of making a puppet, I am also building up its character."
Alenka Pirjevec, as an interpreter and a holistic artist, with her creative curiosity and continuous research of the puppet medium, has contributed greatly to the development of puppetry art in Slovenia.
Public Guided Tours:
– on the Museum summer night, June 21st 2025, at 18.30 and 20.00,
– ob Dnevih evropske kulturne dediščine, 1. oktobra 2025, ob 17. uri, ter vodstvo z delavnico za družine: 11. oktobra 2025, ob 10. uri,
– on December 3rd 2025, at 17.00,
– 18. decembra 2025, ob 17. uri.
– on Slovenian Cultural Holiday, February 8th 2026, at 11 a.m.
Educational program accompanying the exhibition:
Z Alenkinimi lutkami v svet marionet (in Slovenian) >>
The exhibition was opened on Thursday, 12 June 2025, by the Minister of Culture, Dr. Asta Vrečko.
Opening and installation of the exhibition. Photo: Andrej Ovsec/SLOGI.
From the media (in Slovenian)
Alenka Pirjevec: Čarobno je, da mrtev predmet postane živ, Naši umetniki pred mikrofonom, 3. program Radia Slovenija – program Ars, 5. 7. 2025
Alenka Pirjevec praznuje 80. rojstni dan, STA/STAmisli, 5. 7. 2025
Alenka Pirjevec praznuje 80. rojstni dan, SiGledal/STA, 5. 7. 2025
Lutkam vdihniti življenje, Dnevnik, str. 10, 1. 7. 2025
Alenka dela lutke: sprehod skozi desetletja radovedne lutkovne ustvarjalke Alenke Pirjevec, Dnevnik, str. 9, 16. 6. 2025
Kulturna panorama, 47:07–52:44 min, 3. program Radia Slovenija – program Ars, 14. 6. 2025
Alenka dela lutke: sprehod skozi desetletja radovedne lutkovne ustvarjalke Alenke Pirjevec, MMC RTV SLO, 12. 6. 2025
Svet kulture, 16:11–16:50 min, 3. program Radia Slovenija – program Ars, 12. 6. 2025
V Slogiju razstava lutkovne ustvarjalke Alenke Pirjevec, STA, 12. 6. 2025
V Slogiju razstava lutkovne ustvarjalke Alenke Pirjevec Ljubljana, Gorenjski glas/STA, 12. 6. 2025
V Slogiju razstava lutkovne ustvarjalke Alenke Pirjevec Ljubljana, SiGledal/STA, 12. 6. 2025
V Slogiju razstava lutkovne ustvarjalke Alenke Pirjevec, megafon.si/STA, 12. 6. 2025
Alenka dela lutke, Lutka, 8. 6. 2025
Kaj imajo skupnega škatla cigar, ostaline iz požara in lutke?, Doma v muzeju, MMC RTV SLO, 7. 6. 2025
Alenka dela lutke: razstava lutk Alenke Pirjevec, SiGledal, 6. 6. 2025
FROM OUR COLLECTIONS: ALENKA MAKES PUPPETS
Exhibition of Puppets by Alenka Pirjevec
Production: Sloveninan Theatre Institute
Curator: Tea Rogelj, MA • Digitisation, graphic and technical set up: Andrej Ovsec • Selection of excerpts and adaptation of AV material: Ana Perne, editing: David Verlič (Klub Zagon) • Pedagogical and andragogical programmes: Sandra Jenko, MA, Alenka Pirjevec, MA, Tea Rogelj, MA • Expert consultant: Primož Jesenko, MA • Translation into English: Jaka Andrej Vojevec; English language editor: Jana Renée Wilcoxen • Language consultant: Andraž Polončič Ruparčič
The following institutions and companies helped in the preparation of the exhibition:
Museum of Puppetry (Ljubljana Puppet Theatre); Archive of the Ljubljana Puppet Theatre; RTV Slovenia Archive; Prodok, d.o.o.; ŠKUC
Archive
The following individuals helped in the preparation of the exhibition:
Lidija Franjić, Alen Jelen, Tjaša Juhart, Zala Kalan, Žiga Koritnik, Jasmina Kožar, Rok Omahen, Tone Stojko, Simon Stojko Falk, Igor Šterk,
Bor Turel, Nada Žgank
The Slovenian Theatre Institute is funded by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia.
