In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni

Press

“[…] The four black-clad figures are not kidding anyone. They are conducting a concentrated experiment, like in a Samuel Beckett play, just daring to exist. Black snow trickles down on the video, darkness reigns, broken only by windows of light, activated according to announcements made by an off-stage game-master. Dark/light is the only variation. First the dancers just shake their heads, later they break off alone; there are a few frozen heroic gestures, one even looks like sex, and there is a polonaise chain-dance, but mostly there is just emotionless jogging against the storm of senselessness. It is wonderfully uncontemporary, both in terms of the means and the movements. And somehow always real. […]”
www.tanznetz.de, 10 September 2018

Preview text

Behind the long Latin title lies a piece for four dancers of hauntingly metaphysical intensity. In it, the Italian choreographer Roberto Castello offers perplexing insights into a life consumed by endless wishes. Bathed in light or plunged into darkness, as a trance-like rhythm marks time and a voice from off-stage defines what we see, the dancers are pushed to their limits in a complex choreography. Like damned souls, they wander synchronously through the night, now and then breaking out into extreme poses, making grand gestures, falling back, moving on. Perceptions of time and space are blurred as the hypnotic black rain comes down in projections. Within this timeless, gloomy metaphor, the statement “the end is near” seems to promise deliverance in an almost consolatory wa y…

(approx. 60 mins.)

Watch a video on Vimeo

cast & credits

Choreography: Roberto Castello in collaboration with the performers
Performer: Mariano Nieddu, Stefano Questorio, Giselda Ranieri, Ilenia Romano
Assistant: Alessandra Moretti
Light, music and costumes: Roberto Castello
Costumes made by: Sartoria Fiorentina, Csilla Evinger

Production: ALDES

With the support of: MIBACT - Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del turismo, Rome/ Direzione Generale per lo spettacolo dal vivo, Region Toscana/ Sistema Regionale dello Spettacolo

With thanks to the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover.