ELEUSIS / Handa Gote Research & Development

derniéra
performance length: 60 min
A post-internet opera / in Czech, English and Italian

“Today, the walls of Plato’s cave are so full of projectors, disco balls, plasma screens and halogen spotlights that we do not even see the shadows on the wall anymore.”
Society of Simulations, Koert van Mensvoort

A post-internet opera on how a great narrative is impossible in a world where everything is simultaneously a lie and the truth. Mythology's cyclical time broken up into the society of speed's instant time. A mysterious journey through the underworld towards a resurrection that may never come. Lolcats. The Blue Screen of Death. I'm in a cul-de-sac, get me out of here!

O mighty dæmon, whose decision dread, the future fate determines of the dead,
With captive Proserpine, thro' grassy plains, drawn in a four-yok'd car with loosen'd reins,
Rapt o'er the deep, impell'd by love, you flew 'till Eleusina's city rose to view;
There, in a wond'rous cave obscure and deep, the sacred maid secure from search you keep,
The cave of Atthis, whose wide gates display an entrance to the kingdoms void of day.
Of unapparent works, thou art alone the dispensator, visible and known.
O pow'r all-ruling, holy, honor'd light, thee sacred poets and their hymns delight:
Propitious to thy mystic's works incline, rejoicing come, for holy rites are thine.


(Thomas Taylor: Hymns of Orpheus, 1824)

Prepared by: Švábová, Dörner, Hybler, Procházka, Smolík, Svatoš



Handa Gote Research & Development is devoted to experiment with dramaturgy, the inclusion of non-theatre elements in its work and the development of its own concept of post-dramatic and post-spectacular theatre. For many years the group has taken inspiration from science and technology. The group conducts continuous research of theatrical language, laboratory work in the fields of sound and light design, all the while questioning these disciplines.

Web: www.handagote.com

Premiere: 15. 4. 2016, Alfred ve dvoře
Supported by: The City of Prague, the Czech Ministry of Culture, Motus, producers of the Alfred ve dvoře Theatre, Jedefrau.org