Creators: CHOREA Theatre
Direction: Tomasz Rodowicz
Music: Tomasz Rodowicz
Music interpretation and choir leader: Tomasz Krzyżanowski
Choreography: CHOREA Theatre
Light and sound: Tomasz Krukowski
Visuals: Paweł Passini
Costumes: Weselina Nikołow
Premiere cast: Dominika Krzyżanowska Gorzkiewicz, Dorota Porowska, Katarzyna Tadeusz, Anna Bogdanowicz, Janusz Adam Biedrzycki, Hubert Domański, Paweł Korbus, Tomasz Krzyżanowski, Maciej Maciaszek, Tomasz Rodowicz, Arkadiusz Rogoziński
Premiere: 01.09.2007, Fabryka Sztuki in Lodz
The second version of the performance has been played since 04.07.2009
Cast: Dominika Krzyżanowska Gorzkiewicz, Małgorzata Lipczyńska, Dorota Porowska, Katarzyna Tadeusz, Elina Toneva, Janusz Adam Biedrzycki, Hubert Domański, Paweł Korbus, Tomasz Krzyżanowski, Jakub Michalski, Maciej Maciaszek, Jakub Michalski, Tomasz Rodowicz
Costumes: CHOREA Theatre
Duration: 60 minutes
Viewers' age: 16 +
When, together with the Earthfall group, we were finishing the Bakkus project, I knew that for CHOREA it was not the end of work on Euripides and his Bacchae. Soon, we have made a risky attempt to tell this ambiguous tragedy employing a totally different formula – using only the chorus parts from Bacchae and movement. The chorus is the protagonist of the drama. The Songs of Euripides performance is therefore a translation of the ancient choruses through gesture, dancing and singing into modern theatre. It seeks a new language of meanings in communication with the world: the language of the contemporary choreia. In this performance, gestures and movement are extreme, and the bacchae break the boundaries of gravity in their passion and elation. The text in ancient Greek clashes with the excellent translation by Jerzy Łanowski, and the contemporary music by Maciej Rychły is contrasted with the bacchae chord of antiquity.
The Songs of Euripides performance revolves around the women who emerge from the chorus – the bacchae, who in collective elation reach the most intimate and hidden areas of human soul. However, in sanctimonious ecstasy, these areas may be dangerous and lead to crime, both 2,500 years ago and today. The songs trigger dark emotions, energies which, with the suspicious presence of Dionysus, provoke the degraded ritual. The ambiguous rite ends in a mob lynching a misfit who tries to go beyond a social taboo too boldly. Dionysus does not herald a new life here: he only suggests arguments in order to show the scapegoat.
Tomasz Rodowicz
The Songs of Euripides were presented at the Corso Polonia Festival in Rome (Italy) in 2008, at International Meeting on Ancient Drama in Delphi (Greece) in 2009, at Bharat Rang Mahotsav Festival in New Delhi (India) in 2011.
Watch the trailer I
Watch the trailer II
