The Red Blood Rose is a dark fairytale of first love set in the realm where childhood dreams meet nightmare reality. But in a savage adult world, just whom do you trust and where do you find the key to your heart? A wife runs wild, a monk shows a maiden how to dance, and from out of the forest comes a stag with the sun on its forehead, the moon on its breast and the stars upon its back…

With fierce exploits, love spells, strange wedding rites and blood sacrifice, these extraordinary tales from the heart of Bulgarian myth and folklore are revealed to UK audiences in English for the very first time.  

A Spell In Time presents a spellbinding mix of storytelling, ritual, evocative music and stunning Bulgarian singing to create a show full of thrills and surprises, primal theatre that speaks to the heart, mind and soul.

(For adults. Not recommended for children under 10.)

For photos of The Red Blood Rose in performance, see Photo Gallery


For background notes on Deer Mythology see below
 

Background Notes

The Red Blood Rose draws on elements of Bulgarian deer mythology to describe the transition from girlhood to sexual maturity.

According to Bulgarian folklore, deer live in the high mountains, drink water from virgin mountain lakes and are the companions of the samodivi, the nymphs of the waters and the woodlands who ride them up to the clouds and the moon.

These beliefs have their root in Thracian mythology. Deer were sacred to the ancient Thracians, one of Bulgaria's ancestral peoples, and the Thracian great goddess of wild nature, Bendis, is sometimes portrayed riding a doe. Her attribute is the moon, which links the deer with feminine lunar aspects. But stags are also symbols of the sun, mediators between heaven and earth, crowned with antlers like the world tree upon their heads. (See Background to Bulgarian Myth and Folklore for more on the Thracians.)

The Bulgarian traditional wedding rituals enacted in the show provide a key to understanding some of the symbolic magical language of myth and fairytale. For example the pre-wedding customs of braiding of the bride, shaving of the groom and ritual weeping are symbolized in the story in the form of the comb, the razor and the bottle of water. These objects can therefore be understood as symbols of initiation into sexual maturity.

The Red Blood Rose is based on the company's translations of authentic Bulgarian heroic epics, folk ballads, ritual songs, legends and traditional tales that have been handed down orally from generation to generation in Bulgarian villages. We acknowledge our debt to those who told these stories, and to the Bulgarian folklorists who collected and recorded their songs and narratives as a gift to the future.

This wonderful material has ancient origins and is largely unknown outside Bulgaria. A Spell In Time's work in translating and performing it is unique. The company brings to English-speaking audiences for the first time a distillation of traditional Bulgarian culture that is exciting, enjoyable and entertaining while offering an alternative insight into shared human experience.
 

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