AMARTÉS
—
choreography by
Lara Guidetti
—
texts by
Saverio Bari
—
original music by
Marcello Gori
Cain is Amartés, the one who is mistaken, who cannot hit the target, but he who through his mistaken actions sends a call to all men: if today it is still possible to be filled by the feeling of what is sacred, it will only be possible by defying God.
CAST &
CREDITS
with Fabrizio Calanna, Francesco Pacelli, Matteo Sacco, Sofia Casprini and Saverio Bari
sets and costumes by Maddalena Oriani
lights by Luna Mariotti
with the contribution of the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities – Entertainment Sector and Next Laboratorio delle idee 2017/18
SYNOPSIS
IDENTITY 2.0
The project comes from a free re-reading of the novel Cain by Nobel laureate José Saramago. In the tale of the Portuguese writer, Cain, after killing Abel, is marked by the Lord with a mark on his forehead and condemned to wander forever in time and space. His journey is the journey of Humanity, between sensual love and destruction, sacrifice and Law. In our work, the action takes place in the Quantique, a place suspended between a café chantant and mental realm, in which the normal passing of time, the unfolding of space, and the consequentiality of events are canceled. Here, like numbers in a variety show, biblical episodes come to life, moving from the written page to the bodies of the dancers.
On a dizzying, raw, and mocking journey, like Saramago’s own one, the bodies become the main instrument through which the scenic action is channeled, they cross different imaginaries, references, and codes, and give life to a biblical-themed rhapsody which, at Quantique, becomes a sort of freak show, a review of irregular people, a place where tensions, contradictions and the neuroses of the contemporary man come together as one catharsis.
A voice, a bit presenter and a bit demiurge of the story guides the viewer on this immersive and alienating journey, in which Saramago’s overturning takes place: God actions follow inscrutable motives and are often tainted with blind violence, like the one against the many innocents people of Sodom and Gomorrah. Cain, instead, becomes the bearer of empathy and compassion even though he is a slave to vices of the flesh and a repeated murderer.
CAIN IS AMARTÉS
Cain is the social man, who lives exclusively in relation to others, but who is faced with the great issues of existence and finds himself inexorably alone. Cain is Amartés, the one who is mistaken, who cannot hit the target, but he who through his actions sends a call to all men: if today it is still possible to be filled by the feeling of what is sacred, it will only be possible by defying God but not only the God of the Old Testament, it will be by defying the God of data, of virtual realities, the God of banks, that crush our consciences in an anemic acceptance of things; will it be possible starting from the body, from its instances, from its calls, from its being in time, in space, always in an eternal instant?
Questions that man has always asked himself: if God created everything, why does He allow Evil to exist? What unites a body that lives immersed in time and space and the Eternal, that is separated from space-time? Can Divine and Human communicate? And if they can, through which language? Cain is the modern man, who has set aside the sacred and lost the sense of its power, replacing it with logic, money, and consumption, but who sometimes still manages to touch that ancient feeling of connection and harmony with the Whole.
