"Narcissus and Echo" is the closing performance show of the project "A Work of Art - Antique Culture" by the grantees and mentors in the first edition of the Striving for the Stars National Grant. The grant, instituted by the Kulturni Perspektivi Foundation and the metallurgical and engineering holding company KCM 2000 Group, was inspired by an idea of the Bulgarian opera singer Ina Kancheva and supports young Bulgarian talents. The show is the high point of the competition, in which grantees in five arts – visual arts, literature, music, dance, theatre/performance – going through the stages of the grant, will present themselves and their way of treating a common theme, at the same time making their first steps as free artists.

A series of separate but interconnected works will be shown at various locations across Plovdiv on 1 November 2019. The shows will then merge into the final performance: "Narcissus and Echo". The theme harks back to a motif in ancient culture that treats universal ideals and values connected with history, traditions and contemporary life, and was transposed into the spirit of time and presenting a contemporary form of our cultural and historical heritage.

The grant provides financial support for growth and development, and the realization of a personal project. It includes also mentoring advice from five of Bulgaria's foremost artists in each area: Nedko Solakov, Georgi Gospodinov, Krassimira Stoyanova, Galina Borisova and Yavor Gardev.

The first grantees are Radoslav "Rudi" Ninov (visual arts), Alexander Gabrovski and Yoanna Elmi (literature), Stefani Krasteva (music), Stefani Handzhiiska (dance), Emona Ilieva, Konstantsa Getsova, Nadia Keranova (theatre/performance).