Lysistrata-X – A dance theater play which makes use of multimedia and video performance, inspired by Aristophanes’ “Lysistrata” created, directed, choreographed by Emanuella Amichai
for the 3rd consecutive year organizes the NSRF program
“ANCIENT GREEK DRAMA: Influences and Contemporary Approaches’
and welcomes to Athens
the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s department of Theater Studies
for a series of seminars and workshops
to be administered by members of its faculty,
as well as for the performance of the show
Lysistrata-X
The Michael Cacoyannis Foundation for the third consecutive year organizes the NSRF program “ANCIENT GREEK DRAMA: Influences and Contemporary Approaches”, which takes place in the context of the “ATTICA” Regional Operational Program of the NSRF 2007-2013 and is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund and the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports. The programs initial duration was set at three years (2012-2014) and has received an extension for the year 2015.
For the 2014 organization, the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation welcomes for the first time in Athens the University of Jerusalems department of Theater Studies. From September 3-10, the department’s academics will tutor a series of seminars and workshops on Ancient Greek Drama, which will be attended by those who submitted such requests during the previous relative procedure. Following that, on September 11, 12 and 13, the University of Jerusalem’s department of Theater Studies will present “with no admission fee” the show
Lysistrata-X
and video performance,
inspired by Aristophanes’ “Lysistrata”
A utopia for Lysistrata
Dance theater with video performance
If Lysistrata’s revolt had turned into a radical revolution, at the end of which women ruled instead of men, what would that world look like?
Inspired by Aristophanes’ comedy, using images, characters, and subjects taken from the original text, an innovative stage and visual interpretation locates the play in a post-revolutionary, futuristic world where women rule and run the entire apparatus of power and government. They are headed by a half woman / half goddess super-being called Lysistrata, who is the prime ruler and imposes her doctrine in the dictatorial style of an ideological or religious cult. The totalitarian regime is based on mechanisms that combine magic and ritual, alongside technologies that aggrandize the powers of the women, inspired by models taken from historical matriarchal periods.
In addition to a sound-track, the performance combines choreography with video and photos, shown simultaneously on stage. This creates a live cinema-like world in which the plays activities and the projected visuals interplay and create a differently textured performance language. The stage work consists primarily of motion and is based on dance and performance.
The video serves as a plastic material that at times shapes the space concretely (as a basis for describing a specific place and displaying images related to the story and materials that advance the plot), and at other times is simply abstract, as an expression of emotions related to the figures or the on-stage activities.
Production Credits
Thursday 11, Friday 12, Saturday 13 September 2014
Created, Directed, Choreographed by Emanuella Amichai
Co-created, Video art direction, Sound editing by Ran Slavin
Production & Technical Management: Ofer Lachish
Photographs: Din Aharony
Actress – Performance Artist: Gina Ben-David
Dancer – Actress: Shani Ben-Haim
Actor – Director: Yishay Ben Moshe
Actress – Dancer: Meirav Elchadef
Athlete – Performer: Olga Kourkouline
How close and how far is your Lysistrata from Aristophanes’ heroine?
Like Aristophanes’ heroine, our Lysistrata revolted against the common world order in the name of peace. However, the power that Lysistrata discovered eventually became an end in itself. In this interpretation, Lysistrata is not a comedy or social satire, rather, our interpretation focuses on the mechanisms of power and the dehumanization caused by any racist or gender-based ideology. Lysistrata herself has evolved into a techno-psychological super-being who rules through ideology and technological control. Lysistrata is never seen. She is now an ideological abstraction embodied by the Priestess (Olga Kurkulina), or by the rites performed in Lysistratas name. The chorus of Old Women, embodied by Gena Ben David, manages and controls the ancient rites due to her memoried wisdom. The younger generation of women is represented by 2 performers who are a mixture of Aristophanes’ Kleonike, Myrrhine, and Lampito. The men in this world are incorporated into one male performer (Yishai Ben Moshe) whose role is functional: the male inseminates the female and cares for the children. The system of domination portrayed here eventually falls apart, implodes, since human existence cannot be ruled only by rituals of power. The revolt – that Lysistrata once led – begins again, this time against her.
Why have you chosen this particular woman? What does she mean for you?
Today, many interpret Lysistrata as an early feminist model. I was drawn to the question of how such a model might evolve once her power is established. As has sometimes happened in feminist ideology – and in many other ideologies – it evolves in this production into an extreme, self-cultivating, ritualized and dangerous force.
Lysistrata’s power in the original play stems from her charismatic rhetorical force and her brilliant psychological understanding, and use, of basic human needs. Our Lysistrata is the futuristic outcome of Aristophanes’ figure. The object of her power is no longer “peace” but rather the maintenance of power itself: the power of female/feminine control.
You have taken Lysistrata from the past to embody your dream about the future. What is the connection of Lysistrata with the present?
The “dream” is placed in the future, and it is largely dystopian. The meaning for the present is cautionary; Lysistrata represents absolutism. The production explores the dangers of any exclusive, and thus one-dimensional, ideology – even if the ideas originally seemed basically just. I ask: When do the means for enforcing an ideological faith (rejection of men in the name of peace) become the ideology itself (a world without men). Can we recognize at what point the means for attaining a just goal, become the goal itself?
Lysistrata embodies the dream for peace. What does your Lysistrata stands for?
As I wrote above, our Lysistrata has evolved beyond a meaningful ad hoc goal. The world we see in this interpretation is the outcome and evolution of Lysistrata’s past success. This world abuses ideology and its rituals in order to continue to rule. Lysistrata is now a mechanism, a system whose main need is to maintain and enforce the continuation of her power.
When you say that Lysistrata creates a totalitarian regime isn’t it the copy of a man’s world? Why did she fight against men in the first place?
Aristophanes’ Lysistrata does not fight against men; she fights against war through her control of men. The present version displaces the cliché idea that women = peace. Aristophanes uses the battle between men and women as a metaphor for ideological battle itself: which the women win. The power that allowed for this victory has evolved into a mechanism which enforces the power of women, and especially of older, experienced women, on every front. This interpretation cautions against ideological absolutism: even a seemingly just model can evolve into its opposite when it achieves totalitarian control.
Tell us a little more about your performance. Acting, dance, video, music , is this the future of theatre for you?
Theatre has long become a meeting place for mixed media. I see this project as a mixture between three media I find inspiring: movement – image – sound. For me, this is what theatre is all about. My aim and challenge in each project I approach, is to search for the best and most meaningful way to combine all of these aspects on stage. In this project, I feel there is a solid base taken from the original play and yet it has become a new and different world at the same time.
How do you perceive your presence in modern art?
I would say we are dealing here with what is commonly called postmodern art.
Head of the Press Office M. Cacoyannis Foundation
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CVs OF THE CAST AND THE MEMBERS OF THE PRODUCTION/ PERFORMANCE
Emanuella Amichai
Creator, Director, Choreographer
Emanuella Amichai is a director and choreographer working in the field of dance-theater. Her work incorporates dance/movement, theater and performance elements in a style which is strongly visual as well as physical. Her unique stage language emphasizes both the visual and physical aspects of dance-theater within her own unique stage language.
Amichais theater and experimental video works have been performed both in Israel and abroad and have received many national and international awards. Her performance piece The Neighbors Grief is Greener received the 2013 eMIX “quality label” and was one of three international Visual Theatre companies (from among 37) selected for European promotion (eMIX selection committee, Belgium). Amichai was the head artistic producer of the Maabada Theatre (Laboratory Theatre) in Jerusalem, and the head of the Dance department at the Matan Institute for gifted young artists. Emanuella Amichai teaches acting and performance art at the Theatre Studies Department of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Ran Slavin
Video art director, Sound editor, co-creator
Ran Slavin is contemporary video artist, film maker, and sound composer. His work includes immersive video installation, short- and full-length film, video-sound performance, experimental computer music. He has been shown internationally at various exhibitions and venues, among them: Mediations Biennale /Poland (2012), Manifesta Satellite events /Belgium (2012), Museum on the Seam /Jerusalem (2012), Maerzmusik /Berlin (2011), Videoformes /France (2010), Petah Tikva Art Museum /Israel (2009), Tel Aviv Art Museum (2009), Netwerk Centre for Contemporary Art /Belgium (2008), Ars Electronica /Linz (2007), Liverpool Biennial (2006), Rencontres Internationales /Madrid-Berlin-Paris (2006-2012), Torino film festival (2007), Venice Architecture Biennial (2004), Transmediale /Berlin (2003).
Ofer Lachish
Producer – Technical Manager
Ofer Lachish works as a freelance producer in the fields of theatre and video. He is a lighting designer and technical manager for many theatre productions as well as a producer and line producer for independent films and TV productions. He was the chief producer for the Tel Aviv theatre Tmuna, and has worked as a theatre director, assistant director and stage manager in theatres all over the country. Ofer is also lighting and stage technician, a piano and trumpet player, and writes music for theatre.
Gina Ben-David
Actress – Performance Artist
Gina Ben-David is an autodidact in the arts. She is a graduate of performance art workshops led by Tamar Raban and artists from abroad. She participated in the 2009 ensemble performances Old Wives’ Tales, Amplifier, and Remix. From 2008 she has participated in the international ZAZ Festival: Performance Art Platform, and has presented performance-art works at festivals in Israel and abroad.
Shani Ben-Haim
Dancer – Actress
For the last 10 years, Shani Ben-Haim has worked as a dancer and actor. She has participated in dance-theatre projects and has acted in film. She has performed in various national and international festivals and has worked with leading choreographers. Shani also teaches Dance at art schools in Israel. In addition, Shani is an accredited and practicing reflexology therapist.
Yishay Ben Moshe
Actor, Director
Yishay Ben-Moshe is an actor and a director. He graduated the Nissan Nativ Acting Studio in Tel Aviv and has a B.Ed. in Directing and Teaching Drama from the Seminar HaKibbutzim. He directed and performed in a Monodrama at the Israel Festival. In recent years he has acted in a wide range of Israeli theatres such as the Khan, Habima, Cameri , Tmuna, and in various theater groups as Rina Yerushalmis ensemble. Yishay has also participated in several TV films and in movies.
Meirav Elchadef
Actress – Dancer
Meirav Elchadef was the head dancer of the Sound and Silence troupe and participated in independent dance projects in Israel and abroad (including in Vienna and Belgium). She was a dancer and choreographer of the “Toxic Dreams” dance troupe in Vienna. In Israel she participated in the works of Merav Cohen, in the Intimidance Festival, the Gevanim Festival, and at the dance incubator at the Akko Theater. Merav Elchadef won a scholarship for “outstanding dancer” from the French embassy in Israel. She has a B.A in philosophy and literature from Tel Aviv University. She is also a dance and Pilates teacher.
Olga Kourkouline
Athlete – Performer
Olga Kourkouline is a former Israeli High Jump champion. She won the Israeli championship and placed fourth in the world body-building championship, while continuing to work as a performer and personal trainer. She played the role of “Mother Russia” in the 2013 Hollywood production of Kick-Ass 2, alongside Jim Carrey.
Department of Theatre Studies – Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Department’s Short Profile
The Department of Theatre Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, established in 1971 by Arie Sachs, an Israeli poet, scholar and director, is one of the oldest theatre departments in Israel. It is part of the University’s School of Arts. The department faculty specializes in a broad range of research fields and national cultures with an emphasis on Jewish and Israeli theatre, multiculturalism, and performance art. Its many artistic activities and symposia are open to the Jerusalem public and draw scholars from around the world.
The study of classical Greek theatre is an intrinsic part of the Theatre Studies department’s curriculum. Our BA program includes two mandatory courses on the subject (history and play analysis). The laboratory class Play & Performance Analysis: Greece and Rome, developed by the department’s young teachers, combines academic discussions of the text with staging of selected scenes in the classroom – and later presented at our annual Theatre Festival, Tutti-Frutti. Many of our optional courses include themes and figures drawn from ancient tragedy and mythology, such as Dr. Malkin’s course Sacrificial Victims from Antigone to Hair. A core course on Jewish Theatre, Jewish Ritual as Performance, developed by Dr. Yair Lipshitz, employs Greek tragedy as a central paradigm for thinking about the relations between ritual and theatre. More specifically, the notion of corrupted or subverted ritual, prevalent in many classical tragedies, is explored in order to illuminate the multiple ways ritual can sustain and charge dramatic performance in the Jewish context as well. These courses are part of the University-wide Art Program offered by the Faculty of Humanities at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
The Department’s proposal for this program reflects the range and diversity of its faculty interests.
Hall: Theatre Hall of the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation
Time: 20:30
Duration: 50 minutes
Free Entry – Mandatory reservation
Seats allocated on a First Come, First Served basis
Information/ Reservations: 210 34 18 579
(Mon. – Fri.: 11:00 – 14:00)
http://ancientdrama.mcf.gr/, www.mcf.gr
With the support of the Embassy of Israel in Athens
