
Co-produced by: La Filature, Scene Nationale Mulhouse (FR), Holland Festival (NL), Athens Epidaurus Festival (GR), Festival de Marseille (FR), Romaeuropa Festival (IT), La Strada Festival (AT), Teatro Nazionale di Genova (IT)
Elli Papakonstantinou makes the myth of Dionysos her own, giving us a queer version of the play where the question of gender is synonymous with freedom. Euripides’ tragedy The Bacchae is more relevant than ever in this hybrid piece combining theatre, dance, new media, original music and live visual effects. An exciting new immersive experience by one of the leading artists on the international scene.
The piece begins in a politically correct world with suffocating gender labels under the banner of freedom of expression. A meteor called Dionysus is expected to collide and destroy the earth, but when Dionysus arrives, he instead calls for the fulfillment of everyone’s deepest desires…
For the creators of The Bacchae, the idea of queer is more than a set of personal preferences. It is an opportunity to look at the world in a new way. Papakonstantinou delves into the famous Greek tragedy about Dionysus (God of wine and pleasure) and uses it to cross all kinds of borders. Text-based theatre segues into musical theatre, opera and dance as a result of her working with (opera) singers, including composer and performer Ariah Lester, while an interactive sound design brings on stage a seismograph that registers the earth’s and dancers’ vibrations and transforms the stage into a musical instrument: it is the pulse of the cosmos.
Director’s Note
As a director, I follow the flows of text, live music, video art and dance insearch of a new performative language. This piece lies at the intersection of these flows: queer is a new aesthetic; here I embrace pop, kitsch and high art celebrating diversity: I wish that my audience moves from the mind to the senses and is moved by the perplexity and ambiguity of desire and sexuality. As sexuality and desire cannot be programmed or corrected, in my piece class struggle, politics and aesthetic folly merge into a vortex: Dionysiac life itself.
Concept / Art Direction: Elli Papakonstantinou
Text: Elli Papakonstantinou, Chloe Tzia Kolyri, Kakia Goudeli
Choreography: SINE QUA NON ART – Christophe Béranger & Jonathan Pranlas Descours
Original Songs & Music Composition: Ariah Lester
Electroacoustic Compositions / Interactive Sound Design Istallation: Lambros Pigounis
Set Design: Maria Panourgia
Video Art / Live Video Design: Pantelis Makkas
Costume Design: Ioanna Tsami
Light Design: Marietta Pavlaki
Stage Vibration Sensor & Seismograph design: Giannis Kranidiotis
Assistant to the Director A: Spiros Sourvinos
Reaserch Consultant: Louisa Arkoumanea
Collaboration on Dramaturgy: Ariah Lester, Haris Kalaitzidis
Photography: Alex Kat
Trailer: Sideris Nanoudis
Technical Coordination: Lambros Pigounis
Tour & Development Managment: Laurent Langlois
ODC Office Direction: Gina Zorba
Assistant to the Director B: Christianna Toka, Katerina Savvoglou
Assistant to the Director C: Katerina Hristaki
Assistant to the Set Designer: Sofia Theodoraki
Assistant to the Video Artist: Anthi Paraskeva-Veloudogianni
Performers: Ariah Lester, Georgios Iatrou, Hara Kotsali, Lito Messini, Vasilis Boutsikos, Aris Papadopoulos
PREMIERE 2023 at La Filature, Scene Nationale Mulhouse, Festival Vagamondes (FR) 17 + 18.03. 2023
Produced by ODC Ensemble
Co- produced by La Filature, Scene Nationale de Mulhouse (FR), Holland Festival (NL), Festival de Marseille (FR), Athens Epidaurus Festival (GR), Romaeuropa Festival (IT), La Strada Festival (AT), Teatro Nazionale di Genova (IT)
Residency Espace des Arts, Scene Nationale Chalon-Sur-Saone (FR)
With the Support of
the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports
Elli Papakonstantinou has created a contemporary adaptation, which is a theatrical vortex, a performative and explosive, mixture of genres such as theater, opera, and Queer culture (…) With her impactful staging this piece offers a powerful and exciting experience.
Federic Bonfils | FOUD’ART (FR)
Luc Maechel | RACINE NOMADES (FR)
The music, rock/contemporary, functions like a haunting rumor that splits from operatic flights to pop songs appropriating the too much aspect of the gender. (…) A certainty: the undeniable talent of the artists on stage, singers, performers that carry with their luminous and fully embodied presence, this theatrical piece.
Frégaville-Gratian d’Amore | L’ŒIL D’OLIVIER (FR)
Set pieces swirl in all directions, clothing is largely removed, and in a succession of dance, music and visual effects we end up in an ecstatic, orgy-like flow (…) The performance lifts off the ground and turns into an ecstatic burst of energy that no longer speaks through the mind but acts directly on the senses. It is rousing, sexual but above all suggestive, also because the participants in this orgy rarely have contact with each other, but everyone copulates with an imaginary partner.
All genres have now been broken through: dance, theatre, literature, performance, film, pop, classical opera. But the languages also merge with each other. We hear Spanish, English, Greek, Italian, French… And it is no longer clear who is male, female or everything in between.
Christian Weijts | DE GROENE AMSTERDAMMER
A commanding performance by Georgios Iatrou as a singing Tiresias in drag…
Laura Cappelle | THE NEW YORK TIMES (US)
A wondrous, polyphonic synthesis of cultures and eras, a ‘queer ethnic futurism’ (…) Enduring energy, complementary powers, masks, tongues, psychedelic projections, glittering fetishes, dissolving forms, life vibrating beyond divisions, flowing in and out of all unexpected encounters and developments, shocking the mind as well as the body, the mind within from the body, breaking the boundaries of standardized identities.
Louisa Arkoumanea| LIFO (GR)
ODC Ensemble
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Destiny | 2004
Happiness Unlimited | 2016
Streams of Voices | 2003
Elli Papakonstantinou
Performance Director, Activist
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The Sound of the Gun | 2008
The Mysterious Mr Love | 2005
Tree of Happiness | 2017
Faith | 2006
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Louisette: The Backstage of Revolution | 2017
Viciousness in the Kitchen | 2010
The Cave | 2018
Każin Barokk | 2018
Nine Lives, Ten Tails | 1997
Revolt Athenς | 2015
Debtocrazy Revolutions | 2015
The Suppliants after Aeschylus after Kossovo | 1999
Richard II | 2014
Ajax | 1998
Out Cry | 2016
Out Cry | 2011
Sous l’oiel d’Oedipe | 2010
Skin [Δέρμα] | 2012
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From Α to Ω | 2010
The Country | 2009
The Iron | 2004
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Touching the Bottom of the Sea | 2013
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The Ships | 2005
Mετά [After] | 2011
Lettre aux Jeunes Acteurs | 2008
Vyrsodepseio
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A Winter’s Tale | 2021