Of the Nightingale I Envy the Fate
“A high-pitched cry, a fire that blazes, a light that tears the future from the darkness and returns to speak in the horizon of the present.”
- TEATRO E CRITICA
Motus
Presented as part of UNDER THE RADAR
Mark Russell, Festival Director & ArKtype, Festival Producer
“We were never meant to survive.” - Audre Lorde
For more than thirty years, the Italian performance collective Motus has proven to be uniquely skilled at rendering the urgency and contradictions of the modern world through the blade of theater. Tonight, they retell an ancient story. The cursed fortuneteller Cassandra sits in a dark temple, knowing her own death and the end of everyone she loves and hates is fast approaching. No one will listen. She is damned to die unheard but still she cries out furiously, incomprehensibly, like a trapped bird. In this feminist retelling of the Trojan prophecy myth, Motus’ Cassandra is the brilliant Stefania Tansini, a fearless performer who presents as both vulnerable and dangerous in her embodiment of the Homeric character's foretold tragedy. Utilizing intricate choreography, aggressively challenging sound and outrageously visceral physicality, Of the Nightingale I Envy the Fate recasts a millennia-old archetype of victimhood as a very human, very vital powerhouse.
Bestia Workshop #3 | January 17 from 1:30–5PM in The Club at La MaMa (74A East 4th St.)
A workshop designed for performers, video makers, emerging musicians as well as the curious, young, old, unemployed, residents of the neighborhood and lovers of the performing arts.
The starting points of this collective work will be the analysis of the performance Of the nightingale I envy the fate (which will be presented at La MaMa in New York from 10 to 14 January 2024) and the central role of Cassandra – the prophetess whose lament is compared in the Oresteia to the song of a nightingale – who gradually transforms into a bird during the performance.
The workshop will take this transformation as a departure to deepen the concepts of exploration of the self, contagion with other gazes and the connection between man and nature. The aim will be to investigate the trans- formations, camouflage and bestialization inhabiting us all and the possibilities of going beyond the inherent human that each of us has within themselves.
Concept and Direction - Daniela Nicolò and Enrico Casagrande
Performed by Stefania Tansini
Dramaturgy - Daniela Nicolò
Live sound design - Enrico Casagrande
Soundscapes - Demetrio Cecchitelli
Light design and technical direction - Theo Longuemare
Music track - R.Y.F. (Francesca Morello)
Latex props - _vvxxii
Dress - Boboutic Firenze
Assistant costume and set designer - Susana Botero
Video - Vladimir Bertozzi
Production - Francesca Raimondi
Organization and logistics - Shaila Chenet and Matilde Morri
Promotion - Ilaria Depari
International distribution - Lisa Gilardino
Motus was founded in Rimini in 1991 by Enrico Casagrande and Daniela Nicolò. At the forefront of Italian and European performing arts, the company has received recognition in the form of numerous awards including three Ubu Awards and prestigious special prizes. The two free-thinking directors have taken their shows all around the world: from Under the Radar (New York) to TransAmériques and PuSh Festival (Canada), Santiago a Mil (Chile), Fiba Festival (Buenos Aires), the Adelaide Festival and Midsumma Festival (Australia), Taipei Arts Festival (Taiwan), Hong Kong International Black Box Festival, MITsp (Brazil) and all over Europe.
A Motus production with TPE / Festival delle Colline Torinesi
Presented in partnership with Ater Fondazione and Regione Emilia-Romagna Cultura d’Europa
Artistic residencies hosted by progetto residenze artistiche Lavanderie a vapore Torino, Centro nazionale di produzione della danza Virgilio Sieni, AMAT Marche with the support of MiC, Regione Emilia-Romagna.
Under the Radar Festival Director: Mark Russell
Under the Radar Festival Producer: ArKtype, Thomas O. Kriegsmann, President & Sami Pyne, Producing Director
In January 2024, the Under the Radar Festival (RADAR) will be reimagined as a new, city-wide annual festival of theater and performance emerging from New York and around the world that incisively speaks to our moment. Mark Russell, in collaboration with festival producers Thomas O. Kriegsmann and Sami Pyne of ArKtype, continue to evolve the legacy of the beloved festival. When Oskar Eustis assumed the role of Artistic Director of the Public Theater, he invited RADAR to be a part of his inaugural season, in 2006. Under the Radar quickly earned the reputation as one of the most significant and adventurous festivals in New York, known for providing a breakout platform for many artists. On June 1, 2023, the Public Theater announced that for financial reasons—in the midst of near-ubiquitous hardship within the American theater—it could no longer produce the Under the Radar Festival, after 18 editions, 17 of them at the Public. Rather than being tied to a single host institution, this iteration of Under the Radar is curated in collaboration with an array of New York arts organizations and curators, including La MaMa Theater. The festival sets an example of how collaboration can get the American theater through this moment of existential crisis: reinvigorated and ready to create a theater that can embrace diversity, risk, and reinvention.
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