Theatre of the Ancients is a performance company specialising in puppetry, mask theatre and visual storytelling traditions. We create ritualistic, sacred and otherworldly performance interventions rooted in the ancient culture, myths, traditional stories and folklore of Ibiza, Spain.

We are passionate about embracing the origins of theatre – as a universal and accesible art form that can heal and transform, both on an individual and a community level. Our performances draw from the raw landscapes of Ibiza, and the stories contained within them. We believe that through theatre, we can reconnect ourselves with the ancient, mythic essence of an island that has been transformed over the past century by modern tourism and globalization. By remembering the myths and stories embedded in these ancient landscapes, we can mend our broken relationship with them, and simultaneously heal our local communities.

Theatre of the Ancients has performed in diverse cultural events including the Ibiza Cine Fest and the Ibizan fashion show Moda Adlib. We have performed in the Teresetes international puppetry festival in Palma, Mallorca, and the Barruguets family theatre festival in Ibiza. We have created performance work for the Ibizan government and created a commissioned puppet film for Ibiza’s Can Ros ethnographic museum. From the summer of 2021 to the summer of 2022 we created an experimental year-round cycle of seasonal, mythic and immersive performance rituals in wild, remote settings of Ibiza.

Theatre of the Ancients was founded in 2015 by visual artist, puppeteer and performance maker Joanna Hruby. Having graduated from London’s Royal Central School of Speech and Drama with a first class honours degree in Theatre Practice – Puppetry, Joanna spent several years in England, producing work inspired by the myths and folklore of her native South Devon landscapes, before following an irrational dream and relocating to Ibiza, the island where she spent many summer weeks as a child.

Joanna Hruby is also the creator of The Wells of Tanit, a podcast celebrating the culture, history, myths, folklore and ecology of Ibiza. You can listen to it here, or via Itunes, Audioboom and Spotify.