Non Solo Medea
Dance opera Non Solo Medea was performed live in the oldest theater still active in Europe: ‘Teatro Grande’ part of Pompeii ruins in Italy. The piece reveals the modernity of Greek tragedies in a filmic scenography and strongly questions the notion of determinism in a society in crisis. Making itself the bearer in a cathartic impulse of a desire for change.
“Medea is a half-goddess, a kind of witch, who lives in exile. She is a foreigner, we could say a migrant today. Her characteristic is that she fights her destiny, she seeks to take control of her life by all means, including infanticide.”
dance opera in Europe’s oldest ruin theatre in Pompeii
Manuela Mandracchia incarnates from time to time different characters of the Greek theater, monologues extracted from works such as Antigone (Sophocles), Oedipus Rex (Sophocles), Medea (Euripides), Iphigenia in Aulis (Euripides) and Antigone (Jean Anouilh) that echo through the their contemporaneity. Composed of seven parts - exposure, rejection, awareness, regret, acceptance, revolt and outcome, the body of eighteen dancers responds to the words of the ancient theater on the sound of live percussion. The intense dialogue that is created on the scene between the dancers, the actress and the percussionist increases the dramatic tension in which love and struggle are united in this creation. The past and the present touch and collide on an energetic and powerful musical background, drawing both on the Pink Floyd repertoire and on some of the Beethoven and Mahler symphonies.
“The actress’ dialogue with the bodies of dancers, all dressed in white, create a dramatic tension in which struggle and love echos through. The past and present collide in an energetic and powerful musical and visual background.”
credits
| concept / choreo: | Emio Greco I Pieter C. Scholten |
| new text by: | Florian Hellwig |
| film scenography: | Ruben Van Leer |
| actress: | Manuela Mandracchia |
| percussionist: | Flora Duverger |
| BNM dancers: | Bruno Denis, Beatrice Cardone, Carlos Diez Moreno, Pedro Garcia, Andrès Garcia Martinez, Gen Isomi, Nonoka Kato, Yoshiko Kinoshita, Alejandro Longines, Kengo Nanjo, Florine Pegat-Toquet, Maria Ribas, Francisco Rodrigues, Nadjibe Aaïd, Aya Sato, Nahimana Vandenbussche, Valeria Vellei, Anton Zvir |
| voice over: | Thibault Villette |
| dramaturgy: | Marieke Buytenhuijs & Jesse VanHoek |
| light design: | Henk Danner |
| costumes: | Clifford Portier |
| film performers: | Edward Lloyd, Arad Inbar, Helena Volkov, Sedrig Verwoert, Sophia Dinkel, Maxine Van Lishout, Hannah Kriesmair, Suzan Tunca |
| cinematography: | Nicholas Burrough |
| gaffer: | Sven Deen |
| set manager: | Daniel Nogueira |
| art & makeup: | Lucienne Venner |
| art assist: | Thierry Van Raay |
| visual app: | Roy Gerritsen |
| photography: | Alwin Poiana |
| thanks to: | ICKamsterdam, Maarten Heijdra, Hugo Van Der Veldt & film crew |
| produced by: | Ballet National Marseille |
| coproduction: | Teatro Stabile di Napoli – Teatro Nazionale |
filmmaker & media-artist
