OTTO is the smallest and youngest puppet in a puppet theatre ensemble. Together with the five other puppets he has been performing throughout the country for many, many children. OTTO is quite a special puppet, he is a bit of a rebel and a dreamer. OTTO has a vivid fantasy and likes to create his own stories. This has created problems and tensions between OTTO and the other puppets because OTTO is more and more often forgetting what he is supposed to do in a performance or even starting to say or do other. The other puppets do not like OTTO because they think that he is strange and so much different from themselves. But OTTO doesn’t care so much about being an outsider.

Then one day, OTTO wakes up with a great idea: he is going to make his own performance, far better than the play they have to perform of the puppet player. The only problem is: he needs the other puppets to perform in this play. And the moment that one of the other puppets shows interest in OTTO’s ideas, everything starts to fall apart and soon not one puppet is doing what the puppet player wants them to do.

OTTO is telling a story about a child who is not doing as all the others do. A child that refuses to conform to the group and to what you are supposed to do and not do. A child that often is being bullied by the other children because he is behaving different. But also about a child that believes in his own ideas and imagination. A child that has a vivid fantasy and the desire to create his own stories.

A story about the empowerment of imagination and creativity.

Choreography: Benno Voorham

Music: Leif Jordansson

Scenography and costumes: Charlie Hellberg

Dance: Pipsa Poukka and Benno Voorham

Music performed by Vestmanniaensemblen: Malin Trast, Agneta Ölund, Göran Hägglund, Anders Berglund, Jan Bülow

Produced by: Västmanlandsmusiken and LAVA-Dansproduktion

OTTO premièred at 15 November 2008 in Västerås

Photo: Thomas Häntzschel