Simone Mongelli Bodyterranean – The Show

 

Body percussion, voice, and tradition: archaic ingredients for a vibrant new show, combining rhythm and movement, music and theatre, with no other means but the human body itself.

Simone Mongelli and his team present Bodyterranean; a show based on the artist’s homonymous 2016 album. Bodyterranean is the result of a long-term research on blending the contemporary language of Body Music with the archaic language of Greek and Southern-Italian tradition. In the album, all rhythmic and melodic material is rendered exclusively by the sounds of the human body and voice. With the tread of a contemporary musician, Simone traced and retraced the paths of tradition until his own artistic quest met with the needs and emotions of the people, who gave birth to this very culture.

Bodyterranean is the embodiment of that meeting, a show with identity and roots. Stripped-down to only body and voice, Simone together with a few multi-talented artists present on stage a rich and dynamic show, where poetic narration springs out of rhythm, polyrhythm, melody, polyphony, movement, and ambiance.

The show premiered in October 2017 in Athens, at the IMBF, the biggest Body Music Festival worldwide (internationalbodymusicfestival.com), where it was met with overwhelming enthusiasm by audience and critics.

It has been said about Bodyterranean:

With his recording “Bodyterranean”, Simone Mongelli has created one of the finest recordings of body music around. He succeeds in capturing the energy of the art form plus the range, the subtlety and the nuance of sounds the body can make: qualities that are challenging and elusive to capture when recording body music.  The music is beautiful, dynamic, rich and multi-dimensional — a satisfying new standard in body music recordings.

(Keith Terry – founder & artistic director of the International Body Music Festival)

 

“Bodyterranean” conveys an enormous depth of knowledge of Greek music tradition and at the same time, a playful lightness in the creative approach to this music material, in which the joy of singing, moving together and being rhythmically in-tune is in the foreground. […] The atmospheric warmth of “Bodyterranean” touched the hearts of the audience.

(Sylvia Mograbi –internationally acknowledged dancer and body music performer)

 

In Mongelli’s show, the theatre scene gets ideally larger and loses its finite space dimensions. […] Bodyterranean, The Show holds the atmosphere of a familiar musical memory that moved us and made us think that truth is to be found in simplicity.

(Maria Stella Binikou –  reporter – Artic.gr)

 The Team:
Simone Mongelli: concept, compositions, and arrangements of traditional material, body percussion, vocals, direction
Sissy Pintela: body percussion, vocals, dance
Georgina Vardoulaki: body percussion, vocals, dance
Alkis Dimos:  vocals, body percussion, beat-box
Lida Doumouliaka: singing, vocals, body percussion
Alexandra Papastergiopoulou: singing, vocals, body percussion
Fotis Fotopoulos: body percussion, vocals
Natalia Lampadaki: singing, vocals, body percussion
Alkis Alevizos: singing
Tasos Sklavounos:  light design
Nikolas Stavrianoudakis:  sound operator
Konstantina Krigkou: costume design
Marios Sougioutzoglou: assistant director

guests:
Areti Ketime: singing
Manos Achalonotopoulos: vocals
Thodoris Mermigas: singing