concept, devising and performance by Dimitra Kreps
King Agamemnon boasts after killing Artemis’ deer. To appease the goddess’ wrath he must sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia. Only then the Greek ships will be allowed to sail to Troy to revenge Paris’ seduction of Helen. Iphigenia’s myth long after Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides has moved Goethe, Racine, Ritsos to name but a few. Comédie-Française and multiple-award winning actor, director, playwright Jean-René Lemoine revisits this archetypal myth to create his own harrowing nocturnal tale of love and loss, innocence and war, eros and thanatos. Fascinated by Fayoums, the funerary portraits whose gaze physicalises the dignity of sadness and the aristocracy of soul, Dimitra Kreps’ site-specific performance conceives Iphigenia as a Fayoum who for the first time breaks the silence of her gaze to tell a powerful story with volcanic subversion that transgresses time and place, life and death.
The performance blooded principally by Maria Callas’ music is an English premiere adapted from Efi Giannopoulou's beautiful translation of Lemoine's Iphigenia. The 'in-memoriam' text in the same original edition is my own translation. Photography and lighting design by London-based artist Yannis Katsaris.
Conceived as a site-sensitive exploration, it will set off in London (in a gem of a space - a Mayfair gallery) next Spring; it will then voyage through Greece and France. (venues and dates tbc). Unlike Odysseus who reached his Ithaca, Iphigenia's voyage goes on and peripatetic always sympotic (like a Diotima?) she will be sharing her sacrificial beauty of a story and touch in some amazing (archeological or relic or...) sites beyond her dreams, well beyond..."η ζωή είναι ένα όνειρο που βλέπει ο θάνατος" (life is a dream seen by death, Dimitris Dimitriadis)
I am deeply grateful to Jean-Rene for entrusting/endowing me with his beautiful writing. About the author: http://www.mc93.com/fr/biographie/jean-rene-lemoine
http://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2014/03/14/jean-rene-lemoine-se-glisse-dans-la-peau-de-medee_4382961_3246.html
"Perhaps, the two of us, having found that there's no comfort in the
world,
perhaps, for that very reason, the two of us (though each in isolation)
may once more succeed in giving, and maybe getting, comfort." Ritsos' The return of Iphigenia
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very inspiring: http://www.iefimerida.gr/news/182209/o-thanatos-nikietai-mono-apo-tin-tehni-epekeina-i-ekthesi-aristoyrgima-sto-moyseio-
ReplyDeletehttp://dimitrakreps.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/nekyia-dead-can-be-just-as-alive-in.html
ReplyDeleteand Barker as always: '…theory is also rage, temper, nightmare and the suicide note, never really the measured judgement of objective minds…follows on the trauma of performance necessitating some return to causes, instincts, purposes… unharmonious notes which constitute not only a demand but also a longing…because tragedy remains both a secret and an ecstasy' Howard Barker, Arguments for a theatre
ReplyDeletethe performance postcard front http://www.fryktories.gr/sites/fryktories.gr/files/downloads/iphigenia_postcard_front_page.pdf
ReplyDeletewhy Iphi-genie? directions of decomposition " That the greatest connoiseur of human beings should have been nicknamed 'dog' proves that man has never had the courage to accept his authentic image and that he has always rejected truths without accomodations. Diogenes suppressed pose in himself. What a monster in other men's eyes! To have an honorable place in philosophy [sic et al.] you must be an actor, you must respect the play of ideas and exercise yourself over false problems. According to Diogenes Laertius at the olympic games, when the herald proclaimed "Dioxippus has vanquished men!" Diogenes answered "He has vanquished only slaves - men are my business" And indeed he vanquished men as no one else has ever done; with weapons more dreadful than those of conquerors, though he owned only a broom, the least proprietary of all beggars, true saint of mockery". e.m.cioran 'the celestial dog' (ιΦι-ποιός) [η σήμερον ως αύριον και ως χθες και συν-νεφελες θαυμάσιες κι έαρ σαν πάντα car Le diable ne pourra ni m’aider, ni même m’attraper. Ma poule est plus gourmande. Elle est plus libre qu’un homme. Elle est plus libre qu’un diable. Elle sait picorer ce que je dis. Elle pond des œufs en se nourrissant de ma mémoire. (απο τσιγγανικους μύθους του Ζαν Λαμπερ Γουάιλντ)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.fryktories.gr/article/memory-steven-hawley
ReplyDelete