Alex Mihajlovski was born in Macedonia, but has lived in Denmark since 1992. He designed and constructed his first marionette puppet in Spain in 1986. Since then he has advanced his skills and the result is a marionette puppet with a complex string control system, which is continuously maintained and developed – Barti.
With more than 40 fine and almost invisible strings, Alex enables Barti to move his body, fingers and facial features, which enables him to express feelings in a unique way for marionett theater.
The first performance with Barti was in 1988, and he only had 9 strings then. Every year since, new string has been added and new movements controlled by new strings invented.
Traveling ever since, mostly in Europe, he discovered the world and culture of puppet theater. Sadly, since the 1970’s, marionette shows are disappearing, which makes Alex Mihajlovski, one of the few professional marionette puppeteers still performing in variety shows and festivals around the world.
Variety producer Stefan Schönfeld discovered him by chance and he played his first variety show in 2003. He then created a variety version of the performance, and he named the show “Alex Barti show”.
The puzzling and intriguing comedy numbers created by Alex Mihailovski, are based on a theatre/ pantomime, where the story and comedy, are expressed only in movement, mime and music.
As a marionette show without words, Alex Barti Show is rare in the puppeteer world. For such of virtuosity to be possible only by pulling strings, and controlling a marionette like Barti, the puppeteer has no time to think which string he should pull. All manipulation is done instantly, transforming the creativity of expression of the master, trough the strings, into the marionette. For this to be possible, a new kind of marionette string control system has been invented and constructed by Alex Mihajlovski.
Barti participated in 2 competitions and won 1st price in both:
– 1992 Street animation festival, Sierre, Switzerland
– 2001 Street performance festival, Oslo, Norway
The virtuosity of puppeteer Alex Mihajlovski, as a symbiosis between figure and showman, makes the audience cross the border between reality and fiction. Barti, the marionette, is almost alive!