HAMLET

 

2021

Concept: Dewey Dell
Choreography: Teodora Castellucci
With: Ivan Björn Ekemark, Dylan Guzowski, Layton Lachman
Original music: Demetrio Castellucci
Costume design and creation: Guoda Jaruševičiūte
Technical direction, light design, props: Vito Matera
Set design: Transforma
Set design assistance: Ben Clark
Sculpture: Matteo Lucca, “Human”, bread with consolidation treatment
Video and graphic: Clio Casadei with Riccardo Gambi
Mask design: Studio A – Thom Roberts “Grey Face” 2019-20; “Red Face” 2019-20
Production management, choreography assistant: Agata Castellucci 
Project management and administration: Raquel Moreira
Video documentation: Ilaria di Carlo with Ethan Folk and John Nguyen
Funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds (German Cultural Capital Fund)
Coproduction: Tanzfabrik Berlin (supported by Regierender Bürgermeister von Berlin – Senatskanzlei – Kulturelle Angelegenheiten), Dewey Dell, Triennale Milano Teatro
 
An essential aspect of being human is one of being born from others. From others we inherit our origins, our names and our gender. In the same way that animals do, we discover life by developing an imitative relationship with those are around us. The human children though, at a certain point in their lives, must let go those original models and set themselves free from what the others had in mind for them. If this would not happen the young person’s life would be consumed in a breathless attempt at fitting within a picture that has never been their own.

The character of Hamlet in the tragedy by Shakespeare seems lost and immobilised by the order to avenge his father’s murder. Hamlet cannot fulfil his father wish until the very end of the tragedy and for the majority of the drama he is unable to take action. The idea around which this show unfolds is the son’s profoundly human inability of doing.

 

The choreographic research of the work moved close to the concept of corporeity that the trance rites of possession all around the world have in common, without any intention of appropriation towards none of these religious practices. In the type of possession that generate a clear, incisive separation between the possessed person and the divinity, rather than a mystical union of the two, we encounter a condition of the body that is indeed very similar to Hamlet’s mental one. In order to give their own body to someone else who will enter and ride it from within, the possessed person must before become nothing but a container, a tunic of skin (the word “dress” in latin Habitus means ‘way to be’) that will be worn by someone else. This complete abnegation of the self brings the possessed person to forget the ability of existing: feeling themselves, making any decisions and being. This radical notion of embodiment has been extremely important in the creation of this work.

 

 

21-22-23-24/07/21 Tanznacht festival – BERLIN premiere

27/11/21 ICK fest – AMSTERDAM

15-16/12/21 Triennale Teatro – MILANO

19/02/22 Teatro Astra, La Piccionaia – VICENZA

21/10/22 CSS Teatro stabile di innovazione del Friuli Venezia Giulia – UDINE (IT)

23/10/22 rassegna Corpo:Pathos in collaborazione con E’ BAL – FORLÌ (IT)

8-10/12/22 Schaubühne Lindenfels – LIPSIA (DE)

Sculpture: Matteo Lucca, “Human”, bread with consolidation treatment