“International Meeting on Ancient Drama”  in Delphi
9 July 2009

“Songs of Euripides” is the second stage of Chorea’s work on Euripides’ “The Bacchae”. The first was “Bakkus” produced in 2006 together with Welsh company Earthfall Dance. In “Bakkus” the main issue was unwelcome, suffering and ruthless man-god, looking for revenge in the contemporary world. In “Songs of Euripides” the main theme is women – the bacchae. In collective ecstasy they reach towards that, which is most intimate and hidden in human being but in religious and devotional ecstasy it may become threatening and lead to crime – 2500 years ago just as well as today. The performance is reading the play through gesture, song and dance reaching towards nowadays. It is looking for new language to communicate meanings with the world – contemporary chorea – the unity of music, gesture and the word. The text in ancient Greek clashes with brilliant Polish translation by Jerzy Łanowski, today’s music is confronted with the Bacchic accord of antiquity.

In 2008 the team of Chorea plans to begin working on the third part of the trilogy, which explores contemporary issues in Euripides texts.