ながれ / nagare

 

 

Fusing Japanese noh theatre and kabuki dance with traditional Greek tragedies and mysteries (Kaviria, Eleusinia and Orfika) and the polyphonic singing methods of Epirus in Northern Greece, ながれ / NAGARE has been developed as an organic interaction between electric violin soundscapes and slow motion movement as a response to the polyphonic lamenting. Starting with the Greek traditional lament, ‘’I am happy when I forget’’ (Greek trans.‘’Αλησμονώ και χαίρoμαι’’) that was originally sung by mothers on the mountains of Epirus grieving the loss of their sons during the Ottoman occupation.

The interdisciplinary approach and collaboration between a Japanese musician and two Greek performance artists attempts to bring together Greek and Japanese performative and ceremonial elements, as an exploration of the common spiritual grounds of these two phenomenally different cultures. Via subconscious connections of movement and sound that tap into the archetypal experience of loss the performance will explore grief and the ways in which suffering finds its way through darkness.

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Butoh/voice: Eliza Soroga & Roxani Garefalaki
Live violin: Takatsuna Mukai

Epirus Polyphonic Folk- ‘’I am happy when I forget’’

I am happy when I forget, I cry when I remember

Remembering the foreign lands, triggers my motions

It’s time to knead the dough for the rusk, mum

She pours the water with sorrow and in tears she kneads the dough.

And with complaint in her heart, she lights the fire in the oven,

‘’Oven start burning and you, bread, start rising’’

For the keratzis* will pass by, and my son shall remain.

*the leader of the caravan-slave master

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