Antigone in the Amazon
Milo Rau made a political Antigone for the 21st century, together with indigenous people, activists and actors from Brazil and Europe. Having travelled to the former capital of the Islamic State for Orestes in Mosul and to refugee camps in southern Italy for the Jesus film The New Gospel, Milo Rau now travels to the Amazon forest in Brazil to complete his Trilogy of Classical Myths with Antigone in the Amazon.
Festival Nederlands Theater Festival
Venue Grote Zaal
Run time ca. 90 minutes
Genre theatre
Language Multi-langual (English, Portuguese, Tucano)
Surtitles English and Dutch
Selected by the official jury selection 2024
Together with his team, Rau travelled to the Brazilian state of Pará, where the forests are burning to make way for soya cultivation and where capitalism is devouring nature. On an occupied piece of land, in collaboration with the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra, the world's largest organisation of 'landless' people, the team creates an allegorical piece about the violent ravages and displacement by the modern state, which considers private property more important than the traditional right to land.
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From the jury report
"Antigone in the Amazon is political theatre as radical as it is inescapable. It is a meeting of two worlds: between the West and the Global South, between the powerful neoliberal machine and indigenous landless people, between fictional and real tragedy. Also impressive are the chilling performances of the indigenous activists on screen."
REVIEWS
De Volkskrant
"It is a lot, full, inventive, at times radically political and activist theatre, and finally quite depressing (...) Rau has brought the Greek resistance fighter of the past to the present, and turned it into unflinching theatre art."
Le Monde
"Not one video that doesn't hit the mark. Not one word that doesn't enhance the images. Not one movement on stage that doesn't resonate with the images. The realisation sets in that theatre, when it moves so far out of its comfort zone, makes one experience and understand something so much bigger than itself, and that we are."
Die Welt
"While in circles of politically correct rubbish and cultural segregation, Rau's Antigone is scorned as culturally imperialist, the evening immerses you in a strangeness that defies any accusation of cultural appropriation(...) art can transcend violence, anywhere."
5 - 15 September
Nederlands Theater Festival
Nederlands Theater Festival (NTF) marks the festive start of the new theatre season. For eleven days, NTF presents the finest, most impressive performances of the past season, based on the choices of seven independent juries from the Netherlands and Flanders. Thus, NTF celebrates many genres and forms of theatre: drama, cabaret, youth theatre, mime, performance and more.
The festival starts with the always talked-about lecture De Staat van het Theater and the in-depth interview The State of the World with a famous international artist. The festival concludes with a celebratory presentation of the Netherlands' most important theatre awards during The Gala of Dutch Theatre.
Credits
cast Frederico Araujo, Pablo Casella, Sara De Bosschere, Arne De Tremerie
on screen Kay Sara, Gracinha Donato, Célia Maracajà, Choir of militants of Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais sem Terra (MST) and, as Tiresias, Ailton Krenak
text Milo Rau & ensemble
concept & direction Milo Rau
dramaturgy Giacomo Bisordi
dramaturgical collaboration Douglas Estevam, Martha Kiss Perrone
assistant dramaturgy Kaatje De Geest, Carmen Hornbostel
music composition Elia Rediger, Pablo Casella
set Anton Lukas
costumes Gabriella Cherubini, Jo De Visscher, Anton Lukas
light Dennis Diels
video Moritz von Dungern
video making of Fernando Nogari
video editing Joris Vertenten
collaboration concept, research & dramaturgy Eva-Maria Bertschy
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production NTGent
coproduction The International Institute of Political Murder (IIPM), Festival d'Avignon, Romaeuropa Festival, Factory International (Manchester), La Vilette (Paris),Tandem - Scène nationale (Arras Douai), Künstlerhaus Mousonturm (Frankfurt), Equinoxe Scène Nationale (Châteauroux), Wiener Festwochen
in collaboration with Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra (MST)
with support of Goethe Institut Saõ Paulo, PRO HELVETIA programme COINCIDENCIA - Kulturausch Schweiz - Südamerika, The Belgian Tax Shelter
thanks to Carolina Bufolin