Europe. Inspired by de Tocqueville’s work,
Castellucci attempts to shed light on the dark side
of “democracy as tyranny,” which, in the name of
majority, disenfranchises citizens and restricts
their fundamental rights. Transporting audiences
at the time of de Tocqueville and the communal life
of Puritans and Native Americans, the Italian artist
illuminates the phenomenon of contemporary
democracy. Spectacle and power have displaced
the experience of Tragedy, the latter being, accord-
ing to Castellucci, the highest form of self-con-
sciousness and political self-identity. Castellucci
goes the other way round and invites us to explore
the roots of modern democracy long before it blos-
somed and took over the West.
(June 30 - July 2, OLYMPIA THEATRE)
Forced Entertainment
Complete Works: Table Top Shakespeare
A salt-box and a pepper box for the king and
queen; a vase for the prince; a matchbox for the
servant; a toilet paper roll for the innkeeper; a
water bottle for the messenger. In nine days, the
performers of Forced Entertainment will con-
dense every Shakespeare play ever written, one
by one, into a series of 36 miniatures, using
everyday objects as the characters. The stage is
the top of a one-metre table, where the plays
come to life in miniature form, through the use of
simple handmade puppets. In “Complete Works:
Table top Shakespeare,” performers explore the
power of narrative in a simple and idiosyncratic
summary of Shakespeare’s works –comedies,
tragedies, histories, and late plays– creating vivid,
and at the same time strange, worlds.
(June 1-9, PEIRAIOS 260)
Trade with Greece
124
Dance
Dorothée Munyaneza– Compagnie Kadidi
Unwanted
Born in Rwanda and based in France, choreogra-
pher, singer, and actress Dorothée Munyaneza
was only twelve when the Rwandan genocide
began in 1994. Drawing on the horrors of the civil
war, Munyaneza conceived and choreographed a
performance that pays tribute to all those
Rwandan women who suffered atrocities, and
whose bodies were abused, violated, humiliated,
and objectified – thus being rendered “unwanted”.
All those women “who were victims of rape as a
weapon of mass destruction,” in the director’s
own words, and all those children who were born
unwanted.
The performance combines dancing, audio mate-
rial consisting of testimonies under the guidance
of electronic composer Alain Mahé, a two-person
choir comprising Holland Andrews and
Munyaneza herself, and works of art by
renowned artist Bruce Clark.
Munyaneza envisions the performance as a lega-
cy that is passed down from one woman to the
next; a legacy that should not be forgotten. The
performance will be presented to the Athens
Festival immediately after its premiere at the
Festival d’Avignon.
Supported by Teatroskop, as part of
FranceDanse Orient-Express. Teatroskop is a
programme o
f Institut Français de Grèce
, Ministry
of Culture and Communication, and Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and Global Development of
France. With the support of the
Institut Français
de Grèce.
(July 18-19, PEIRAIOS 260).
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