Photos by Guido Mencari

The Minotaur: Journey of a Hero

With Gianluca Gabriele, Susannah Iheme, Daria Menichetti

Choreography, direction and dramaturgy Luana Gramegna
Sets, lights, costumes and masks Francesco Givone
Sound design and original music Stefano Ciardi

Dramaturgy and writing collaboration Enrica Zampetti

Production Zaches Teatro
with the support of the Region of Tuscany and MiBACT
In collaboration with Fondazione Sipario Toscana onlus - La Città del Teatro, Giallo Mare Minimal Teatro, Straligut Teatro, Kilowatt Festival, I Macelli di Certaldo

What is outside of you is a projection of what is inside of you,
and what is inside you is a projection of the outside world.
Therefore, often, when you penetrate the labyrinth that is outside of you,
you end up penetrating your inner labyrinth as well.

Haruki Murakami

Ruins, sounds of rubble, crumbling stone, statuesque figures come to life and, in a twilight atmosphere, evoke the myth to which they belong. The Minotaur is the emblem not only of the quintessential monstrous creature, different, outcast and cursed, but it is also the symbol of the bright and prosperous Cretan civilization that, antagonistic to Athens, is overpowered by it and thus branded as aberrant and cruel. Here history becomes myth and the conqueror becomes hero: Theseus.

A physical journey into the world and metaphorical journey into himself that has fulfillment through Ariadne, Lady of the Labyrinth. This is no longer the naive, love-struck maiden, but is the bacchante-officiant-like key to the intimate world of the labyrinth that Theseus must face, a world closer to Hades than to Olympus.

The viewer is immersed as if in an art history book, in which steps animated by a religious sense and ancestral ritual flavor move, and in which verses inspired by the musicality of Homeric epics and tragic di- breakers resonate.