All that may bleed | Six scenes from Sophocles’ tragedies | AJAX
Eleven Athenian women, with the instructions of the Swedish director and visual artist Markus Öhrn, formed a band and dived into the work of Sophocles, presenting it as a series of six dark atmospheric theatrical installations. Putting on center stage what is usually hidden, the macabre and grotesque element, the work approaches these plays through the lens of their heroes’ body: The body that experiences history and is crushed by it, a field of extreme violence. The body of the ruler and the weak. The body of the soldier. The body of the rebel and the philosopher.
The halls in the historical Reading Room of the National Library building in Athens, designed by Theophil Hansen, was transformed into dark arenas where the eleven women faced the extreme moments of Sophocles’ heroes, presented in six different performances.
Unexpected choices regarding the work of Sophocles make us rethink on our relationship with ancient tragedy today.
“…Hack this body limb from flesh.
And hack off my head. Chop me in pieces,
to save me from the horror of hope…”
(Philoctetes, 1206)
credits
Direction, Concept: Markus Öhrn
Costume, Mask, Sculptures: Tilda Lovell
Sound, Light: Damiano Bagli
Video: Jakob Öhrman
Dramaturgy: Efthimis Theou
Video assistant: Natasja Loutchko
Director’s Assistant: Geli Kalampaka
In cooperation with: INSTITUTET (SWE)
Commissioned and Produced by: Onassis Culture/FFF
Supported by The Swedish Arts Counsil
With: Sousanna Arkouli, Depy Aslanidou, Diana Zachariadi, Youli Zachariou, Angela Iordanescu, Aphrodite Kapala, Sandy Karaiskou, Maro Karamani, Mariangela Katsikali, Lena Pampouki, Katerina Triviza
We would like to thank the following for the extracts of the translations in modern Greek:
Papadimas publishing, for Ajax, translated by Panayis Lorentzatos
(edited by Nikos A. Panagiotopoulos),Nikos A. Panagiotopoulos, for Antigone,
Kastaniotis Ediitions, for Electra, translated by Georges Cheimonas,
Bibliothèque publishing, for Oedipus Rex, translated by Minoas Volanakis,
Kostas Volakas and Eleni Papazoglou, for Women of Trachis,
Yorgos Blanas and Gavrielides Books, for Philoctetes.
