Of Ivory and flesh - statues also suffer

Marlene Monteiro Freitas

Winner of the prestigious Silver Lion for Dance at Venice Biennale 2018, choreographer Marlene Monteiro Freitas was introduced to the Greek audience with Bacchae: Prelude to a Purge, presented at Athens Festival 2017. A co-production with Athens Festival, Bacchae was met with enthusiasm from critics and spectators alike. 
Freitas, whom Biennale has called “one of the greatest talents of her generation,” returns to Athens Festival with one of her earlier works, noted for its surrealism, tension, subtle humour and a sense of the uncanny and the unfamiliar, all those aspects which made Bacchae such a one-of-a-kind experience. of ivory and flesh - statues also suffer is Freitas’ first work for an ensemble of performers and percussionists and is described by the choreographer as “a dance of petrified figures.” The statues/bodies dance, defying the laws of nature which condemn petrified figures to eternal stillness. Influenced by numerous sources, from Ovid’s Metamorphoses and more specifically the myths of Pygmalion and Orpheus to the French film Statues Also Die (1995) by Alain Resnais, Chris Marker, and Ghislain Cloquet, which critically examined African art and colonialism, the choreographer builds a unique universe with surgeon-like precision.